





•AWV * 


d- -. .^v'’ ^’scjsr.- ■-■ 'ci- “. - fe- >' - * o. 

•f 







0 ^ ■ ' 
A, 

*,,,.■ , 0 ' ’c. '», ^o’ *■-'■* 

, 9 ^ ' ' .I' '- =:. 


V A y 0 ^ V A> r. N C 

, o' ' « « O* ,. 0 ‘ 

jkX iedtf/y^-. '? 



j ^ 1 / ^ A 

•s 


'^o 0 ^ 



\ 


0 o 


* -V * 

i}.-** ‘^■i- /' i. -^ C c- J 

^ 5 j . ^ - .-iv' 


"‘%% cP^‘ 

. 'p 




V 





° ^ 'v'' 

^ 4 . \^' </^ V / /V^V^AxN^ * 



<-^ a' 

v"* 

O^ ^ 

^ > 


V I B 


'^tT* .AV or 

t/^ 1^ V oa 


O 


-f 



C^ 


s 

'=^. 

^ ff 

1 A" 

' A ^ J 

« 

A 

vn o 








A * 



4 

C* y ''VJvi— « o » ’ 

'*' 0 N 0 ^ 

: .*A% 


























NHW YORK: 


+ To I\N • W • L ovg L, L • Y+ 

s r ■ - " 14 6.1^ V^EY STREET 


34.iMILV PuBUC^^TIo^ro^T^P^e5^jTCjJ^Jg>|Y_^^T^JiJ^^i^ 

Vol 4« No. m. Sept. *, 1»88. Annual a ab«cription« $IS0.00.<||^ j 


THE 


MILY. 


SOUTHWORTH SHELLEY, j 


mM ^Entered at the Post OfUce, N. Y., as second-class matter. i 
Copyrijrht, 1883, by JOHM W. Ixjtbli. Co. 


AJit. AjiJk /sri«: 

^Y** .^ip^ 

ait CLOTH BinblH’O for this volume can he ehtiine^ from any bookseller or newsdeaierf price I5cts. 





LOVELL’S LIBRARY. 

C-A.T!A.XiOC3-XTE. 


1. Hyperion, by H. W. Longfellow, . .20 

2. Outre-Mer, by H. W. Longfellow .. ,20 

3. The Happy Boy, by Bjdrnson 10 

4. Arne, by Bjurnaon 10 

6. Frankenstein; or. the Modern Pro- 
metheus, by Mrs. Shelley 10 

6. The Last of the Mohicans, by J. 

Penimore Cooper 20 

7. Clytie, by Joseph Hatton 20 

5. The Moonstone, by Collins, P*t I,. 10 
i). The Moonstone, by Collins, P tII.lO 

10. Oliver Twi.st, by Charles Dickens. 20 

11. The. Coming Race, by Ly lion 10 

12. Leila, by Lord Lytton 10 

13. The Three Spaniards, by Walker.. 20 

14. The Tricks of the Gre( ks Unveiled; 

or. the Art of Winning at every 
Game, by Robert Houdin 20 

15. L' Abbe Constantin, by Halevy. .20 

IH. Freckles, by R. F. Redcliff 20 

17, The Dark Colleen, by H irriett Jay .20 
Id. They Were Married I by Walter Be- 

aant and James Rice 10 

19. Seekers after God, by Canon Farrar, 20 
2U. The Spanish Nun, by Tbos. De 

Qnincey 10 

21. The Green Mountain Boye, by 

Judge D. P. Thompson 20 

22. Fleur ette, by Eugene Scribe 20 

’ 23. Second Thoughts, by Rhoda 

j Broughton 20 

I 24. The New Magdalen, by Wilkie 

[. Collins 20 

J 25. Divorce, by Margaret Lee 20 

i 26. Life of Washington, by Henley.. 20 
I 27. Social Etiquette, by Mrs. W. A. 

Saville 16 

28. Single Heart and Double Face, by 

Charles Reade 10 

29. Irene, by Carl Detlef 20 

30. ViceVersa; or, a Lesson to Fathers, 

by F. Anstey 20 


31. Ernest Maltravers, by Lord Lytton. 20 

32. The Haunted Hou.se and Calderon 

the Courtier, by Lord Lytton.. . 10 
S3. John Halifax, by Miss Mnlock 20 

34. SOO Leagues on the Amazon, being 

Part I of the Giant Raft, by 
Jules Verne 10 

35. The Cr.N’ptugrara, being Part II of 

the Giant Raft, by Jules Verne.. 10 

36. Lifecf Marion, 1 ly Horry endWeems, 20 

37. Paul and Virginia 10 

38. Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens 20 

39. The Hermits, by Kingsley 20 

40. Ah Adventure in Thule, and Mar- | 

riage of Moira Fergus, by Wm. j 
Black 10 I 

41. A Marriagein High Life, by Octave i 

Feuillet 20 j 

\ 42. Robin, by Mrs. Parr 20 ' 

43. Two on a Tower, by Thomas Hardy . 20 \ 

44 . Kasselas, by Samuel Johnson 10 i 


45. Alice, or, the Mysteries, being Part 

II of Ernest Maltravers 20 

46. Duke of Kandos, by A. Matthey . . .20 

47. Baron Munchainserl lO 

48. A Princess of Thule, by Wm. Black. 20 

49. The Secret Despatch, by Grant. .^.20 
60. Early Days of Christianity, by Can- j 

■ on F.arrar^ D,D., Part I 20 | 

Early Days of Christianity, by Can- 
on Farrar, D.D., Part II 20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Gold- 1 

smith 10 i 

52. Progress and Poverty, by Henry 

George 20 

53. The Spy, by J. Fenimore Cocker. . . 20 

54. East Lynne, by Mrs. Henry Wood. 20 

55. A Strange Story, by Lord Lvtton..20 

56. Adam Bede, by Geo. Eliot, Part I. 15 
Adam Bede, by Geo. Eliot, Part II. .15 

57. The Golden Shaft, by Gibbon. 20 ] 


68. Portia, or. By Passions Rocked, by ' 
The Duchess 20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii, by Lytton. 2U 

60. The Two Duchesses, being the se- 

quel to the Duke of Kandos, by 
A. Mathey 20 

61. Tom Brown’s School Days at Rug- 

by 20 

62. TheWooing O’t, by Mrs. Alexander, 

Part I 15 

TheWooing O't, by Mrs. Alexander, 

Part II 15 ; 

6-3. The Vendetta, Tales of Love and | 
Passion, by Honore de Balzac.. 20 i 
64. Hypatia, by Rev. Kingsley, Part I. 15 i 


Hj’patia, by Kingsley, Part II. ...15 ' 
6.5. Selma, by Mrs. J. Gregory Smith.. 15 

66. Margaret and her Bridesmaids. .. 20 

67. Horse Shoe Robinson, Part I 15 ; 

Horse Shoe Robinson, Part II 1.5 ' 

68. Gulliver’s Travels, by Dean Swift.. 20 ! 

69. Amos Barton, by George Eliot.,.. 10 j 

70. The Berber, by W. E. Mayo 20 

71. Silas Marnei, by George Eliot... 10 ' 

72. The Queen of the County 20 

73. Life of Cromwell, by I’axton Hood. .15 

74. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte . . ,20 


75. Child’s History of England, by 

Charles Dickens 20 

76. Molly Bawn. by The Duchess 20 

77. Pillone, by William Bergsoe 15 

78. Phyllis, by the Duchess 20 

79. Romola, by George Eliot, Part I... 15 
Romola, by George Eliot, Parc II. .15 

80. Science in Short Chapters 20 

81. Zanoni, by Lord Lyteon 20 


82. A Daughter of Heth, by W. Black. 20 : 
The Right and Wrong Uses of the 
Bible, by Rev. R. Heber Newton.20 i 
84 Night and Morning, by Lord Lytton , 


Part 1 15 

Night and Morning, by Lord Lytton 
Part II 15 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 



SOUTHWORTH SHELLEY. 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
14 & i6 Vesey Street? 




DEDICATION. 

TO THE MEMORY OF 
MY BELOVED GRANDMOTHER, 

MARY SHELLEY, 

THIS HISTORY IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED, 
BY 

NAUTZ NAUTZ. 


Copyright, 1883, by 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 


CHAPTER I. 

Of making many books, there is no end," said the 
Preacher ; had he said “ sorrowful books," it appears 
to me, he would have rung the key-note to the melan- 
choly of the general American temperament. 

Months since — after the fashion of popular authors 
— I began to weave into shape a ponderous and I 
might say posthumous tragedy, the weight of which 
so laid upon and oppressed me, that I put it aside for 
a little space, to gain fresh strength and courage ; 
when all at once, a sort of “ special providence " 
proved to me conclusively, that if by any chance, I 
could make humanity laugh, instead of weep, I should 
do it a much more lasting benefit. 

Yesterday, as I passed through the sitting-room, I 
came upon ^‘The New Baby” — of whom I shall 
speak later — with her bronze slippers resting upon the 


6 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


Steel bar of the fender ; alternately looking into the 
grate and embroidering a motto for the new establish- 
ment, which she proposes to set up in the Spring. 

When I looked over her shoulder to see the design, 
she held it up, and instead of “ God bless our Home ” 
as I expected — it read — “ Eat, Drink, and be Merry.” 

I was struck as it were, “all of a heap,” and without 
a word I walked away, with a big thought which has 
worked itself into the shape which follows. 

I do not claim, be it remembered, that we five, were 
in any way unusual children, but, there being such an 
army of us, I do think it may in some measure amuse 
the public, to know something of the ways in which 
we kept our parents from stagnation ; and whipped 
the entire household into a syllabub of excitement. 

St. Jerome, appearing first, gained the advantage 
over Frantztony Nautz and Nautz Nautz — the names 
are of his making, the last being my own — who 
arrived respectively, two and four years later. 

I am, however, enabled to give a tolerably correct 
statement of his sayings and doings, up to the time of 
my own advent ; because of the innumerable times 
Aunt Peggy the nurse, with abroad smile beautifying 
her dear old homely face ; has recounted “ Master St. 
Jerome’s smartness,” to my baby ears. 

* * # ^!^ * * 

There was immense amusement and excitement up 
and down the principal business square of Woodstock. 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL K 


7 

A small figure, in a blue sailor suit, was seen walking 
demurely up the street, minutely studying the signs. 

Finally it stopped and began to spell — ‘‘ R. T. 
S-m-i-t-h — B rown.” 

Having satisfied his mind upon the correctness of 
the name, he walked into the store, pulled a package 
of old envelopes out of his pocket ; threw back the 
curtain of his sun-bonnet, which being put on in 
evident haste was “ wrong side foremost,” and with 
a critical eye, but highly intelligent look, ran over the 
papers, seized the end of one : drew it out of the rub- 
ber band ; and handed it with a bow to the proprietor 
— Smith. 

“ Your bill Mr. Brown ; please settle.” 

“All right, Jerome ; who sent you V* 

“ Papa’s busy, and I thought I’d come,” evasively. 

“ What a help you must be to papa.” Then with a 
quizzical look at the clerks who stood about, smiling 
at the “ cuteness ” of this epitome of man, he said 
“ I’ll give you a check on the bank ; will that do } ” 
“Yes, sir ; suit yo>irself,” said St. Jerome. ■ 

The spurious check received, the small youth placed 
It inside an old, apoplectic pocket-book, mainly filled 
with bright pebbles, pewter medals, and pieces of 
whipcord, with bent pins attached, swept a complaisant 
bow, to all who stood around and left. By this time, 
laughing faces were visible at every store door. One 
asked of another,- “ What’s the fun!” and received 


8 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


the answer, “ St. Jerome’s out collecting ; pay up 
gentlemen.” 

And so he went from one to another, receiving here 
a few pennies, and there another check, until having 
nearly reached the end of the square, he stepped into 
a store, picked his way daintily between the rows of 
oil barrels and rolls of leather, threw up his bonnet 
curtain, and confronted — papa. 

■ With one shriek he turns, and is off like a deer ; 
papa after him in bare head and shirt sleeves. 

The cash boys scream “stop thief ! ” St. Jerome 
hears the cry and makes his little legs fly until they 
look like animated clothespins. The clerks shout 
with laughter, at the unequal race ; the proprietors 
clap their hands and urge him to fresh zeal. Papa is 
in a foam ; the Doctor is still fresh ; he reaches the 
corner, what now > He surely will not attempt to 
cross through all that pack of drays and carriages, 
express wagons and coaches ; and here comes a drove 
of pigs — the Doctor's greatest terror is for pigs. Will 
he brave them ? 

You don’t know the pluck of the average American 
boy. 

This is the crisis, will he yield ? Not a jot. 

With one gulp, pluck swallows fear, and he dives 
under a standing horse, dashes into the drove, creating 
a perfect stampede among the animals and urged on 
by a burly druggist— the giant of Woodstock — who 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. ^ 

stands in his door, clapping and shouting, “ Run ! 
Jerome, run in here and hide.” 

With one last effort, he plunges through the strug- 
gling, squealing porcine trotters, rushes between the 
giant’s legs, tears around the counter, and curls- up 
among the paint pots ; just as papa steaming and 
blowing comes up, shaking his fist- at the giant, while 
he cries between laughter and exhaustion, — 

“ You rascal, how dare you encourage disobedience 
in that way } ” 

The huge druggist blocks up his doorway, whilst 
he says, — 

“ See here, Simon, you’ve got to promise me one 
thing before I let you in ! ” 

“ Well, what is it } ” 

Don’t punish that boy. I won’t stand it. He is 
the smartest boy in thd town for his age ; and to see 
him brave those pigs, while his little heart was in his 
mouth, all the time, was punishment enough for once. 
Besides, we all urged him on, so let him go.” 

“ It’s bad discipline, he will be unmanageable by 
and by,” said papa, shaking his head. 

“ Not a bit of it ; will you promise } ” 

“ I promise not to whip him.” 

“All right ; St. Jerome come here.” 

Doc. crept from under the counter, with soiled 
dress, and smeared face, and came slowly forward, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


1 o 

“ St. Jerome,” said papa severely, “how did you get 
up town } ” 

“ I walked ! ” 

You young scamp, I know that. Who came with 
you ? ” 

“ I corned wis myself.” 

“ Did mamma know it ^ ” 

“ N-o-o-o.” 

“ What did you run away for } ” 

“ Didn’t runned away, I walked.” 

“ What did you do it for ? ” 

“T’c’lect bills.” 

“ What } ” 

“ T’c’lect bills.” 

“ He means, to collect bills,’ interposed the drug- 
gist. 

“ Didn’t you know that was bad in you ? ” 

“ N-o-o-o. I’se tired ; an I didn’t have no one to 
play wis — ’cas Franztony’s sleep; and mamma’s gone 
out ; an’ nurse sed, “ Go way you bad boy ” an’ I 
goed.” 

What made nurse call you a bad boy } ” 

“ ’Cos she sed her back ached, an’ I went an’gotted 
some grease, an’ rubbed it, an’ she wasn’t glad a bit — 
she jus sed, Go way you bad boy, you’ve spiled my 
new caliker.” 

“ I should think so,” said papa. 

And then he took Doc by the hand, led him down 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL Y. 


It 


Street to the store, got his hat and coat, and took 
that young gentleman home, where a great excitement 
had broken out upon the discovery of his absence. 
The cistern and well had been examined ; the neigh- 
borhood searched ; and Uncle Jack white with terror, 
had already started for the store, when he met the 
delinquent being brought back. 

St. Jerome appeared about as penitent as small 
boys usually do for delinquencies, and manifested his 
regret by curling on mamma’s lap and saying, — 

“ Tell about the Probable Son.” 

This being the stereotyped story which always 
ended up his badness. The moral which was drawn 
at its conclusion, proved to poor St. Jerome, that no 
boy who ran away, had any right to expect to take 
his beloved wheelbarrow and whip to bed with him 
that night. So he sobbed himself to sleep, after this 
most unique prayer, — 

“ Now, I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord 
my soul to keep — to keep to — keep — Oh ! I’ll black 
your boots an’ make ’em shine. An’ only charge you 
half a dime.” 

Whereupon he tumbled into bed, but scrambled out 
immediately, to add, — 

“ Please, Lord, take good care of the wheelbarrow, 
and don’t let Johnnie Clark steal my whip, ’cos he 
sed he would, amen.” 

Whilst Frantztony remarked solemnly from her crib: 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


1 1 

“Auntie Peg aia’t J’rome a badder boy than he 
uster was ? ” 

Which question Aunt Peg could not answer, for 
fear of laughing and so went quickly downstairs to 
relate this last cuteness of Master St. Jerome’s. 

It had been decreed by mamma that Doc, for pun- 
ishment, should be made to go without his shoes and 
stockings next day ; knowing well that ten circuses 
and a hippodrome couldn’t get him outside the gate 
in that disgraceful condition. 

So he ran about in the house until he couldn’t 
stand that any longer ; then he went into the back- 
yard, where he walked about, in the grass, in mortal 
terror of the wasps and bees, and finally found his 
way to where mamma sat in the -shady piazza sewing. 

Lying down on the floor, he seemed to drop into 
what Aunt Peggy called one of his “ thinkin’ ways,” 
now and then giving a rousing slap at his feet. Pres- 
ently he eased his mind of its burden in these words, 
“ Mamma, do you think there are enny flies in the 
bad place ” 

“ I don’t, know, Jerome.” 

“ Why don’t you know ? ” 

Mamma tried to explain. 

“ Why can’t somebody what’s been there tell I ’’ 

Mamma tried to make that lucid, when he burst 
out with, — 

“Well, I jus’ hope if there are enny flies in the 
bad place, they’ll all get their feet burnt off ” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


13 


Presently the sun began to drop behind the apple 
trees, and the honeysuckle vines cast long dancing 
shadows on the piazza floor ; then mamma began to 
fold up her work, and reached down for her basket 
preparatory to going in ; when, lo ! she found that 
Master Doc’s small teeth had been busily engaged 
upon her nice cake of white wax, and every spool in 
the basket had been notched by “ that eternal jack- 
knife,’* which had evidently often missed the mark 
and dug deep into the thread, leaving the basket full 
of cotton rings. 

“ Oh, Jerome ! ” groaned my long-suffering mother, 
“ what shall I do with you } ’* 

“ ’Spect you’d better drown me, an’ be done wif 
me,’’ answered Doc reflectively. 

“ What made you cut my thread } ” 

“Didn’t cut it, th’ ’tarnal ole jack-knife gouged 
it.'’ 

“ I will have to give the jack-knife away to some 
little boy who knows how to use it.” 

“ Let me give it away, mamma.” 

Mamma turned and looked at Doc, still compla- 
cently lying at her side ; not really certain that she 
had rightly understood that young gentleman ; for 
that knife was to him what the first jack-knife is to 
every boy with the full possession of his five senses. 
Therefore, when he calmly repeated, “ Let me give it 
away, mamma,” she answered with pleased alacrity, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


i4 

“ Why, of course I will, Jerome. Give it to some 
poor little boy who wants it ever so badly.” 

“ I jus’ know a boy what’s like that.” 

And so it proved ; for inside of a half hour Doc 
made his appearance in the dining-room, where 
mamma was busy, and held up a huge knife with four 
blades, a corkscrew, a file, and various other attach 
ments. 

“ Where did you get that thing, Jerome ? ” 

“ ’Tisn’t a thing, it’s a knife. Patsy gimme it, I 
lole you I knowed a boy what wanted a jack-knife 
bad. See here, mam, this here’s to pull teef,” show- 
ing the corkscrew ; “ this thing grinds blades sharp,” 
opening the file ; “ this cuts buckon holes, an’ all the 
rest on ’em do heaps an’ piles of things.” 

“ And one of the first things will be to cut your 
fingers,” answered mamma with a shiver. 

Bully for Patsy,” was all Doc’s answer. And 
then he was sent to the pantry to get something, and 
remaining much longer than was necessary, mamma 
called, “ St. Jerome! ” 

'‘Yes, ’m,” spluttered Doc. 

“ Bring the cream pitcher, quickly.” 

And then she heard Doc cough and gurgle and 
choke, and running to the door she found that young 
man doubled up on the floor, purple in the face, with 
plum juice on his face and a plum stone in his throat. 
He was pounded on the back, strangled with water, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


^5 


had every finger in the house run down his windpipe, 
in the attempt to dislodge it, when, finally, being car- 
ried into the yard coughing violently, the plum stone 
flew out, when poor Doc gasped, — 

“ Does ev’ry boy what steals get choked wis the 
plum stones ? ” 

“ It is best not to steal. Doc, because it is wicked, 
and God won’t love you.” 

Yes, an’ God better jest think it hurts too,” re- 
marked Doc. 

“ Poor little boy,” said papa, who just then came 
upon the scene, “it is so hard to be good, and older 
people than you try no harder and succeed less.” 

And then he picked him up and carried him, soiled 
pinafore, stained face, ruffled hair and all, into the 
parlor, where he sat down in a great, easy chair, and 
rocked slowly, keeping time to the heart-breaking 
wail of, “ Oh ! Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son ! ” 
until the weary little head lay upon his breast with 
closed eyes and tear-stained lashes ; and poor Doc 
had reached the end of his day of punishment. 


i6 


THE HA UTZ FAMILY. 


CHAPTER II. 

We are all undoubtedly born with some mission to 
perform ; mine I learned early, was to tell the truth. 
For I never told a falsehood in my life, but that the 
truth tripped me up in the end, and made an abomin- 
able expose of all that was to have been kept secret. 

Hence, when I state that it was about this period 
of Doc’s existence that I made my first appearance 
upon the stage, to cast my small lights and shades 
upon the picture; give my small splashes to the 
scenery ; and save Doc from the fatal ending of many 
a score ; following in the footsteps of the renowned 
G. W., the father of all truth-tellers, I will also state 
that I do not remember the night upon which I was 
born — how I came to know that my mother cut her 
hand with the butcher knife the night previous, is no 
business of the reader’s. But, having referred to the 
calendar of births in the family Bible, and having my 
memory, where defective, jogged by the family chronol- 
ogist, I am enabled to say that it was my role from 
the first to take them by surprise. 

This point, I am glad to state, I gained, by choosing 


THE NAUTZ TAMIL V. 


17 


a night when winter had all the earth by the ears ; 
and a keen north wind had drifted the snow until the 
roads were almost impassable and at the very least 
dangerous. The wide old-fashioned chimney sucked 
up the flames with delight, after they had danced and 
curveted, and reflected demon faces in the brass 
andirons ; and every one congratulated himself as he 
drew up to the fire, that nothing kept 7/2;;/ out on such 
a night. 

But, just to prove how liable humanity is to mis- 
takes, no sooner had all “ settled themselves for a 
long winter nap,” than papa went to my uncle’s door 
and said apologetically, which was altogether unneces- 
sary,— 

“Joe, it’s an awful night.” 

And Joe responded, “ We agreed upon that an hour 
ago, Simon.” 

“ Are you asleep ” ventured papa, not knowing 
how to open the subject. 

“ Yes, and dreaming,” answered Joe. 

“ Well, then,” said papa, boldly walking across the 
room and shaking him, whilst he whispered in his ear 
loud enough for the rest of the house to hear, — 

“ Well then, Joe, Leah’s sick, and you must go for 
the doctor.” 

“ Oh, ho ! ” shouted Joe, “ that’s a horse of another 
color.” 

And bounded out of bed; dressed rapidly; went 


i8 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


down to the kitchen, raked up the fire, piled on fresh 
wood, swung on the kettle, called up the back stairs 
for Aunt Peggy ; and having chased my father, who 
had been walking aimlessly about, watching his move- 
ments, back into the bedroom, he caught up and 
lighted an old-fashioned lantern, tucked his pants into 
his boots, buttoned his great coat, and went with 
great swinging strides out to the stable, where 
mamma’s own horse was saddled and led out in less 
time than it takes to write it. 

I have heard him say many a time, that he never 
remembered anything about those three toilsome 
miles ride ; being taken up entirely with encouraging 
his noble steed, and with the fear that the family 
physician, who was already descending the shady 
slope of life, would scarcely dare to venture out on 
such a night. 

But finally, reaching the first half of his journey, he 
rang the bell, and not waiting an answer, called im- 
mediately up the speaking tube, — 

“ Come quickly doctor, Mrs. Simon De Graff is ill,” 
expecting to hear the old doctor roar back, “ I have 
the rheumatism, and can’t sit a horse to-night, go for 
my partner; ” but, instead, this roar came, — 

“ I’m coming at once ; the child that has the hardi- 
hood to enter life on a night like this deserves con- 
sideration ; come in and warm, while I get ready.*’ 
Uncle Joe, has mentioned the fact in my hearing, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


19 


scores of times, that it blew “great guns” on their 
return, hence I am convinced on that head, however 
dim my memory may be on other points. 

Master Doc being taken next morning to see “ the 
little new sister God had sent in the night,’’ was lifted 
on the bed, kissed and stroked mamma’s cheek, — for 
Doc’s heart was the tenderest thing ever made — then 
leaned over to see the “ cunnin’ thing.” He exam- 
ined me most critically and finally asked, “ Where’s 
her hair. Aunt Peg V' and being told that I had none, 
answered with surprise, “Hah.^ I don’t think God’s 
so very rich if he couldn’t give her no switch; but 
mamma, you lend her your pretty curls,''’til God sends 
her one.” 

The hair question settled to his satisfaction, he 
looked in the small mouth and gasped, “ Aunt Peg, 
she’s swallowed her teeth,” and broke out into a great 
roar. Upon this point he was not so easily pacified, 
but being promised a hobby-horse if he would be a 
good boy, he turned a summersault off the bed, ran 
into the nursery, and soon came galloping back with 
the “ wheelbarrer and whip,” shouting,— 

“ Now, then. Aunt Peg, put her in an’ I’ll give her 
a ride.” 

The combined expostulations and explanations of 
mamma and Aunt Peggy were scarcely sufficient 
to quiet Doc on this score, and he ended by say- 


20 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


“I wouldn’t break her, an’ I do jus’ wish God had 
sent her growed up an’ a real bad 'wi too ! ” 

“ Why do you want her to be a ‘ real bad one,’ 
Jerome,” asked mamma. 

“’Cos, then I wouldn’t feel so bad zvheii I was bad. 
Frantztony she’s jus’ as good as good, an’ never gets 
scolded, nor spanked, nor put in the closet, nor her 
face washed all the time ; nor patches on her knees ; 
nor swallers plum stones ; nor bare feet ; nor wasps, j 
nor whip stole, nor nothin’ an’ ” — 

Here Doc broke down and boo-hooed with genuine 
unction. ^ 

Having reasoned it out, in later years, I have not a 
doubt, but that the new soul in my pusillanimous atom 
of a body, comprehended poor Doc’s woe and need at 
that time, and became a “ real bad ’un ” on the spot 
for some wise purpose. 

Not that we were ever, what the people we worried 
and badgered could with truth call wicked, but we 
worked in unison, concentrated our forces, united our 
judgments and efforts, and with superior inventive 
and imaginative powers, were thereby enabled to pro- 
duce the largest results from this co-operation. 

By the time I was three years old, I fully compre- 
hended that Frantztony was “ good.” 

Every one said so and patted her on the head, 
twisted her curls around their fingers, admiring their 
beauty and gloss ; kissed her from admiration, and 


TILE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


21 


gave her pennies which she always refused ; whereas 
their admiration and praise were redoubled and the 
pennies finally thrust into her apron pocket. 

I haven’t a doubt to-day, but finding that that move 
worked so well at the first trial, that she made a stock 
point of refusing them. Not that she ever gave me 
such assurance, but only that time and experience 
have proved the “ total depravity” problem to perfec- 
tion in my own and Doc’s cases, and I see no possible 
reason for its not holding good in Frantztony’s also. 

Her steady tendency toward everything that was 
dutiful and good, and our tendency to go in a corres- 
ponding ratio in the opposite direction, was, to say 
the least, most aggravating to otrr infant minds. 

We never quarrelled with her for being always out 
of a scrape when we were in, or went so far as to slap 
her in a fit of spleen, but that she immediately betook 
herself to the gooseberry bushes under which she 
crept, and tuned her small voice to some Sunday- 
school hymn. 

Whoever taught her that way of returning “ good 
for evil,” can assure himself of the double-distilled 
extract of my contempt ; for the remembrance riles 
me yet, proving, as you see, the old Presbyterian 
doctrine of — depravity. 

Frantztony being from her infancy wise in Bible 
lore, had the commandments, catechism, golden-rule, 
Lord’s prayer, fifth chapter of Matthew, and the one 


22 


THE NA UTZ TAMIL Y. 


hundred and nineteenth psalm from Aleph to Tan at 
the tip of her tongue ; and consequently carried off 
all the first prizes at Sunday-schools ; besides being 
publicly praised for diligence, and held up as an ex- 
ample to all sluggards at memorizing. In truth, I do 
solemnly assure the public, that I do not believe any 
family could give a showing of more than one such 
prodigy — for the reason that all good and religion 
in the parents must unite to burst finally into this one 
blossom. Hence, my reader can readily deduce a 
reason for the lack of these things in Doc and Nautz 
Nautz. 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


23 


CHAPTER III. 

I, Theodora, alias Nautz Nautz, alias Dick, being 
in “cahoots” with the Doctor from the first, it of 
course follows that his beliefs, conclusions, doubts, 
were in the main mine also. And having been 
born to aid and abet his early efforts, it is not in the 
least surprising that having so much of the true “ Tom- 
boy” mixed with my femininity, I soon learned to 
abjure all girls as tame, washed-out things, and to be- 
lieve in and cling with a child’s strong faith to the 
out-cropping decision and strength of the “ coming 
man ” in St. Jerome. 

Hence, by the time I was five years of age, the in- 
trinsic value of dollies was much below par with me. 
While Frantztony Nautz had always a long row of 
wax and putty-faced babies, dressed by her own 
fingers, ready for exhibition. For me, I had too much 
to do, to keep up with St. Jerome, to waste time upon 
such frivolity as dolls. 

He being some four years my senior, the difficulty 
with which I grappled is readily understood by the 
thinking public. 


24 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


How, with our native proclivities for mischief, we 
ever fell heirs to such incongruous names, as St. 
Jerome and Theodora, has always been a subject of 
mystery, and amusement to me. 

The only explanation I have for the matter is, the 
fact of our having been christened in infancy, before 
we had had a fair showing. 

But having had time to fully demonstrate our 
unique bent, it may have been for this reason, that, 
as a general thing our real names were dropped, and 
the “ nicknames ” of Doctor and Nautz Nautz, or 
Dick, were substituted. From this misapplication 
of names has evolved a theory of my own, which 
develops favorably the older I grow ; the principal 
point in it requires that the child shall be chtistened 
without a name, allowed to exhibit his predilections, 
find his own bent and 7iame himself. 

The only difficulty I encounter is in the fact, that 
every child born, would probably go by the title of 
until such time as he or she attained a fair 
age, and there might possibly in time, grow to be too 
many “ Babies^' to distinguish any given one. How- 
ever, I believe even this difficulty might be overcome, 
if a few of our wise heads were to take up and discuss 
the subject. 

Grandmamma Shelley lived at Hillsboro, a dis- 
tance of some fifteen miles by stage from Woodstock. 
Now to go to grandmamma’s was the delight of our 


I'lIE ATAUTZ FAMILY. 


25 


lives. Therefore, when papa was called away, by busi- 
ness, for some weeks, he suggested that mamma should 
take us children and go home. 

The mere idea was entrancing. Frantztony im- 
mediately sat down and sung the hymn book through. 
Doc dashed to the nursery, and inside of ten 
minutes, had all of his belongings piled in the wheel- 
barrow ready for transportation. I pirouetted about 
the room, until the ecstacy grew too big for my body, 
and flying out of the door, still on my toes, climbed to 
the topmost branch of a small cherry tree, where I 
still sat, swayed and rocked by the wind — which 
always made me mad with delight — until Aunt Peggy 
came to the door, adjusted her glasses, and cried, — 
“ Now then, you child, whatever are you a doing up 
there come down quick, before you break your bones, 
the wind’s a blowin’ awful.” As if the wind or all 
the elements combined, for that matter, with which 
I came into the world in co-partnership could or 
would hurt me ! '• 

Bah ! I swung my feet loose, twisted off a dead 
twig and flung it down at her with the words, — 

“ Nothin’ll hurt 7ne, Aunt Peg, I’se born lucky.” 

“ Massy sakes, who told you that, child } ” 

“ The Mammy WitcM 
“ Sakes alive, where did you see her } ” 

“ Promised not to tell. Look here Aunt Peggy.” 

I swung myself around, dropped my feet on to the 


26 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


next lower branch, catching dextrously with my hands 
the one I had left, and thus proceeding reached the 
ground safe and nimbly as a cat ; while Aunt Peggy 
had turned white with fear and stood glued to the 
doorstep with amaze. From that moment I think 
that Aunt Peggy looked upon me with a sort of awe, 
and a belief that I really held conference with evil 
spirits of some sort ; which had taken me under their 
protection and would not suffer harm or molestation 
to reach me. for all of my pranks. Henceforth, she 
treated me with a much greater degree of deference, 
and a little spasm of fear ran over her countenance 
whenever I threatened to tell my “ Mammy Witch ” 
of anything she said or did. 

But I digress from the point of how Doc came by 
his name. 

The longed-for day came at last. Mamma, St. 
Jerome, Frantztony and myself, were safely stowed in 
the stage, with much fuss, and many queer exclama- 
tions, which created a good-deal of merriment among 
the passengers ; and we were finally off to that dear 
haven of all my sweetest and tenderest memories — 
grandmamma’s. 

How glorious the day was ! All along the roadside 
the grass lay like velvet, sheared close by the grazing 
cattle ; while over the worm fences, and making 
dainty bowers over many a decaying stump, climbed 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


27 

the wild sweetbriar roses, sending puffs of delicious 
fragrance through the stage windows. 

Music and perfume have always had the subtlest 
power over me. I believe if I were dying, the grand 
deep notes of the cathedral organ, moaning, quaver- 
ing and rocking up to the dome, could bring me back 
to life. As for perfumes, I have but to close my eyes 
and inhale the delicious fragrance of the white rose, 
and I am straightway transported to heaven. 

Doc exhibited his delight of the change from the 
driver’s seat by snapping with his whip at every fly 
which alighted on the horses, and telling wonderful 
things to that Jehu. 

Frances, otherwise Frantztony, showed her pleasure 
by singing softly, — 

“ I’m glad I’m in this army.” 

I knelt on the seat, with my chin on the window, the 
tears rolling down my cheeks, and my handkerchief 
stuffed into my mouth, lest my silent ecstasy should 
find an outlet in sobs. 

Going to grandmamma’s ! Dear grandmamma, 
whose lovely face was bordered with the dainty lace ! 
and to see Uncle Ulric and Aunt Dora! How de- 
lightful and entrancing ! And ere the whole beauty 
of the thought could be taken in and digested men- 
tally, here we were rolling into the town and up the 
street which led to the dear old home, a mile further 
out. 


28 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


And there is grandma, with her glasses poised 
upon her shapely nose, and the lovely blue eyes 
searching the passengers from her door, on the look- 
out for her three “ babies.” 

And here comes Aunt Dora, dainty and trim and 
petite — dear Aunt Dora — how many wonderful things 
she taught us and did for us in those days. 

Ah, here is Uncle Ulric too, with his mop of beau- 
tiful curls, which I so long to dip my hands into 
Now he catches us one after the other in his strong 
arms and carries us to the door where the others 
wait ; and all talking at once in a grand, universal, 
combined uproar, we move in a solid phalanx to the 
sitting-room. It takes very few moments to toss off 
hats and summer wraps, and away we go, dancing 
after Uncle Ulric; while grandmamma and Aunt 
Dora take possession of mamma. 

First to the dear old red barn with its queer- 
pointed roof. Here stand the horses, each one in his 
stall, just as though they had never stirred since our 
last visit. And there is Blossom, and Beauty, and 
Lady Bess, each chewing her cud and chained to her 
rack, ready for milking. Here we go up the ladder 
to the loft, where the clover and hay reaches the roof 
in heaps of sweetest odor; and now Jerome shouts, 
“ I’ve found a hen’s nest ! ” And forthwith gathers 
the eggs into his best straw hat ;’ and we all scramble 
over the hay in search of other nests, when suddenly 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


29 


the great bell hanging at the kitchen door proclaims 
“ supper,” and we slide down the clover waves and 
run lo see which shall reach the ladder and be down 
first 

St Jerome, being nimblest, gains the day, but stop- 
ping, ere half down, shouts, — 

“ Never mind, girls, we’ll all start to onc’t, when 
you get down.” 

Then we stand in a row outside the barn door ; St. 
Jerome spits on his hands and counts,- “ one, two, 
three, ready ! ” and away we go ; two streaks of light- 
ning and a thunderbolt ; Frantztony being the thun- 
derbolt, because she always puffed and grumbled, and’ 
never held out long on a run. 

Doc and Nautz-Nautz came m ahead as usual, with 
much screaming and laughter ; while Frantztony trots 
puffing after with the eggs in Doc’s hat. We had 
forgotten them ; she never forgot anything. 

Having once apologized to the reader for this ten- 
dency of mine to “fly the track,” I desire that he will 
allow said apology to stand permanently, that I may 
not hereafter be hampered with any further need of 
that kind. 

I go now immediately to my story. 


30 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY, 


CHAPTER IV. 

The first day or two was sunny and bright and glo- 
rious, and found us everywhere ; but most in the barn- 
trying all manner of ridiculous and dangerous things- 

Once, I know, being on a sort of side mow, which 
had no connection with the main loft, the heavy lad. 
der which ascended slipped aside, just as St. Jerome 
reached the floor, and it was impossible for him to 
replace it. Boy like he dared me to jump. ^ 

The distance was full twelve feet, and I, madcap 
that I was, never “ took a dare.” 

I stood for a moment thinking, then began to heave 
down small armsfull of hay, and not being able to 
come close to the edge to* see how much was neces- 
sary to make a soft fall, and fearing Doc would call 
me a coward, I drew in my breath, took a step back 
and a spring forward, and came down with a thud on 
the barn floor. 

Frantztony gathered up her patchwork and trotted 
to the house to tell. 

Doc turned white as a sheet, and I lay still. Inside 
of three minutes, the house had emptied itself into the 
barn, and all stood over me with lamentations, when 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


31 


suddenly I sprang up, shook myself free, and was off 
with a shout, barely escaping Uncle Ulric, who cried 
after me, — 

“ Never mind, you small ’possum, you’ll be settled 
with yet,” and I was. Q. E. D. 

From that hour I went by the name of Dick. 

But there soon came a rainy day, when we were for 
bidden to go outside the house door, and then came 
the trying time to St. Jerome and me. We were, 
however, given free access to the garret, and there 
such a heaven of delight unfolded itself to our eyes, 
that it took full half a day to exhaust the old spinning 
wheel, reel, carder, and various other things new to 
us. 

But dinner over, we resolved to try something alto- 
gether new ; therefore we betook ourselves to 
mamma’s bedroom and called in Frantztony, who, 
with all her other good qualities, united a sort of 
blind obedience, to whatever we forced upon her, so 
long as she herself was the only sufferer. We told 
her our plan. 

St. Jerome was to be the physician, we the patients. 
Frantztony acquiesced, was laid on the lounge and 
covered. I, with my arm in a sling and my foot muf- 
fled, sat in mamma’s rocking chair: St. Jerome went 
outside the door and knocked. 

In a weak voice Frantztony said, “Come in.” St. 
Jerome entered, hat in hand, with his pockets well 


2 2 The na utz fa mil K 

stuffed with mamina’s perfume bottles and a lot of 
empty pill boxes. 

He asked in a sympathetic tone, “ How do you find 
yourselves, ladies ? ” and we both groaned “ Very 
poorly.” 

He felt Frantztony’s pulse, looked at his watch, 
rolled up his eyes and said, — 

“Frightfully rapid, a high fever,” which was scarce- 
ly to be wondered at, considering that she was 
covered with two blankets and a patchwork quilt, on 
the tenth of July. “What is the matter with me,” 
moaned she, more than half believing herself sick. 

“Disordered stomach,” answered the physician. 
Thereupon, he pulled out the bottles, set them down 
with emphasis; drew out the pill boxes, shook them 
until he really found one with something in it ; opened 
it, stepped to the lounge and told Frantztony to open 
her mouth, which she dutifully obeyed. 

He dropped a pill, and she swallowed it ; another 
and she swallowed ; another and she gagged ; a fourth 
and she protested, “ Oh ! Jerome, I don’t want any 
more ! ’’ 

“ But you must or you’ll die ! ” 

Death, she could not contemplate with equaninity, 
and the fourth pill disappeared. A fifth was disposed 
of, after much perseverance on the physician’s part. 
A sixth was held ready, when the door opened, and in 
walked grandma. Uncle Ulric and mamma. 


THE .VAC/TZ FAMILY. 


33 


“ See here, Leah,” said uncle, “ didn’t I tell you 
there was mischief on hand, or the house wouldn’t 
have been so still ? ” 

“ What are you doing St. Jerome t ” 

“ Frantztony’s sick and I’m giving her medicine ! ” 
“ What’s the matter with her 1 ” 

Then St. Jerome gave a diagnosis of her disease, in 
terms learned from the family physician. 

They could not help but laugh. 

“ And what is the matter with Dick } ”• 

“ Oh ! she’s got yellow janders, frozen feet, dislo- 
cated ancle, sprained wrist, and consumption.’’ 

Is that all } ” shouted the whole party. 

“ Now then, young gentleman, if you don’t ' cut 
and run,’ I’ll make you take the rest of these pills,” 
said Uncle Ulric. 

But St. Jerome, was out of hearing before he had 
finished, and he was ever afterward “ the Doctor ’’ 
among the entire relationship, which name I have 
given him throughout this history, because long usage 
has made it almost impossible to call him anything 




34 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


CHAPTER V. 

Just here began a new phase in the small lives of 
Doc, Frantztony and Nautz Nautz. 

Just when mamma began to talk about leaving for 
home, a letter came from papa, telling of a con- 
templated trip to England, upon business, which might 
for aught he could say, detain him a year. He there- 
upon suggested that we children should remain with 
grandmamma, whilst mamma went home ; saw to 
the storing of the household goods ; dismissed the 
servants-- all but Aunt Peggy, who being part and 
parcel of the family, was not to be done without — and 
made due arrangements for all things during his 
absence ; when he would return with her to say good- 
bye. 

I remember that seemed an awful time to me. 

If they had lifted me up to look upon papa in his 
coffin, he could never fiave seemed more absolutely 
dead and separated from me, than the awful waters of 
the Atlantic were about to make him. 

I know he came with mamma and stayed over 
night ; and grandmamma cried and Aunt Dora cried. 


THE NAUTZ EAMIL\ . 


35 


and Frantztony cried ; and whenever I came upon 
mamma unexpectedly, she had her face in her hands ; 
and Uncle Ulricas face was very solemn, and his hair 
curled more than ever ; and Doc forgot to whistle or 
dance, and a sepulchral gloom settled down over the 
whole house, and I was utterly quenched. 

Then the next morning, a white horse ready saddled 
was led to the door, and papa kissed and hugged us 
all, and walked down the gravel path to the gate ; but 
turning to look at us, saw mamma drop back into 
Uncle Ulric’s arms, whereupon he flew to us again, 
and the whole scene was repeated ; until finally, uncle 
pushed him out of the door, saying, “For God’s sake, 
go, Simon.” And papa mounted the white horse and 
rode away. Whereupon the idea bujrnt itself into my 
brain that that white horse was to bear him gallantly 
across the waters ; but the odds in my mind were a 
dozen to ten whether he would sink or swim. 

However, having confided my doubts to Doc, a 
queer look stole over his face ; but he encouraged me 
in the belief. I remained steadfast and faithful to 
papa at least, inasmuch as the first thing I did in 
the morning and the last one at night, was to go to 
the gate, and look long and anxiously up and down 
the road for the appearance of the wonderful white 
horse. 

Then a letter came ; a great fat, jolly letter, with 
three great blotches of red sealing-wax on the under 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


36 

side, and on the upper ever so many yellow stamps 
with the Queen’s iiead upon them. 

I asked Doc why they didn’t put papa s or any 
other man’s’ head on them, instead of the Queen s, 
but he told me the English were a queer sort of 
people, so bloodthirsty and dreadful, that they had 
beheaded and beheaded, until there wasn’t a man left 
with a head on, and that accounted for the stamps 
bearing the Queen’s head. 

What papa could want in such a country was 
really more than I could account for, and a new fear 
immediately seized me, that perhaps they would be- 
head him ; he being a handsome man, and so big that 
he could not possibly hide his head. 

But when the letter, being first read by mamma, 
was re-read to the whole family in conclave, and papa 
never said a word upon the subject, but told instead 
how well he had been received and how kind every one 
was to him, I became reassured at once and began 
with Doc’s help, to brew small mischiefs, with past 
assiduity and skill. 

There was one place where Frantztony and myself 
had been forbidden to go, without being under the 
especial espionage of some of the elders. 

This was humiliating in the extreme to me ; to feel 
that Doc was allowed to venture upon ground where 
so grave and steady a person as myself was forbidden. 
The place was the old saw mills ; where I had seen 


^THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


37 


Uncle Ulric and the men place the great log ; set the 
saw and finally start it ; at such times as auntie or 
mamma had fast hold of my hand. But the delight 
for which I longed, was to go alone. 

I was fully aware that it would go hard with me if 
I ventured by myself ; so, after due consideration, I 
deterrnined to persuade Frantztony into the scheme. 

We were sitting upon a pile of hay on the barn 
floor. I was making a bouquet of dried clover heads ; 
Frantztony was putting together gorgeous blocks of 
blue and yellow, green and. red, for her patchwork 
quilt. 

“I say, Frantztony, Fm ever so tired.” 

Go to sleep,” answered she, laconically. 

“ Can’t, ’cause your needle hurts my eyes.” 

“ Shut ’em.” 

“ That don’t do any good. I can see through the 
lids.” 

“ Put your apern over ’em.” 

“ Can see thro’ that, too.” 

“ Ain’t you tollin’ a fib 

“ No, sir, I ain’t! ” 

“ Then I’ll put up my work,” said she, with a sigh. 
I lay very still for a few moments', watching her out 
of the corner of my eye and revolving how to pro- 
ceed. 

Finally a little soft chuckle drew her attention and 
she said, 

“ Thought you were goin’ to sleep.” 


38 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“ I was just thinkin’ how funny uncle looked this 
mornin’, when he went to put on his boots.” 

“ What was the matter with ’em ? ” 

“ Didn’t you know what Doc and me did with ah 
them quarts and quarts of fireflies ? ” 

“No!” 

“ We put ’em in the boots I ” • 

“ You’re wicked.” 

“ No we ain’t ; we just put ’em in easy and put a 
paper on top, to keep ’em in.” 

Here a gleam of interest showed itself in Frantz- 
tony’s face, and she asked, — 

“ What did uncle do ? ” 

“ He took off the papers and said, ‘ I wonder who 
did that ? ’ and then a heap of fireflies came crawling 
out, and his curls stood up and he looked so funny ; 
and then he began to laugh, and said, — ‘ That’s Doc 
and Nautz Nautz, I’ll bet,’ but he wasn’t cross, and I 
say, Frantztony, they’ve let the water out of the race, 
’cause they’re goin’ to clean it, and Doc says there’s 
lots of little Ashes and crawfish and all sorts of ugly 
slimy things in there, when the water’s off. Don’t 
you want to see ’em } ” 

“ Ye-es ! ” reluctantly. 

“ Let’s go.” I ventured. 

“ But they said we shouldn’t, fiever.^' 

“ Oh ! they meant when the mill’s goin’ and the 
water’s in.” 


THE NA UrZ FA MIL F. 


39 


Ain’t the mill goin’ ?” asked she. 

“ Can't go without water ! ” 

“ Can't it } then we couldn’t get drowndedC 

“ Course not ; let’s go.” 

“ We 11 ! ” 

So off we set, hand in hand, I keeping Frantztony’s 
mind well off the question, knowing that it was open 
to debate ; but I did not know that uncle’s prophecy 
— that the “small ’possum would get paid,” was so near 
fulfilment. 

We trudged along the narrow path, stopping now and 
then to gather wild fennel, or g^rour white aprons 
full of green walnuts, where the village boys had pelted 
them down, and after awhile, we came to the -race, 
walked close to the bank, saw, it was empty, and, just 
as Doc hac| said, all sorts of loathsome crawling, slimy 
things moving about and making for the pools of 
muddy water, which stood here and there. I wanted 
to see better, of course, and get nearer; therefore 
spying the log which was thrown from one side to the 
other, to serve as a foot-passage. I trotted out upon 
it, Frantztony protesting. 

I stooped down and looked over; that was grand ; 
but I thought of an improvement, I could lie flat and 
be nearer to a pool black as ink, and I knew there 
must be something wonderful in such an awful mud- 
puddle. 

Frantztony stood on the bank, coaxing me to come 


40 


TH-E NAUTZ FAMILY. 


back. I lay down, and she began to sing that cheer- 
ful old Presbyterian hymn,— 

“ Sinner 1 stop— Oh, stop and think, 

Before you farther go ; 

Will you sport upon the brink 
Of everlasting woe ? 

On the verge of ruin stop : — 

Now the friendly warning take ; 

Stay your footsteps, ere you drop 
Into the burning lake.” 

When all at once the stick gave way with which I 
was turning up the wonders of the bottomless pit, be- 
low the foot brid'l^, and I went, tow-head foremost, 
into it. 

Frantztony screamed for all that was out, and echoes 
caught up and repeated the screams, thereby catching 
Aunt Dora’s ear’s and accelerating her speed toward 
my whereabouts ; for being missed from the house, 
she had set out to search for us, and had tracked us 
by my sun-bonnet and clover bouquet, which lay far 
back on the path, l^y the time she was upon the log, 
uncle, the men, and Doc were all there ; I was fished 
up and auntie cuddled me in her arms, to the detri- 
ment of her immaculate dress ; whilst Frantzony ran 
behind, crying like the chief-mourner at a funeral. 

Being of the opinion that it was a waste of salt 
water, I remarked sagely, “ Frantztony, needn’t 
cry, I ain’t dead, are I auntie 1 ” 

'‘Dead!” said Uncle Ulric, “I should think not. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


4 


but I won’t have a black hair left by the time you go 
away, if you keep this up,” and I resolved on the spot, 
to learn some hymn from Frantztony and be good. 
Whether my determination outlasted my mud-bath, 
remains for the reader to decide. 

But whatever his decision may be, I have a distinct 
idea that mamma had settled upon a plan to physic 
Doc and me into being “ good.” 

I have no remembrance of being sick at this time, 
and yet, the recollection which clings the fastest to 
my memory is connected with Saturday uight and 
castor oil. 

I remember it was mamma’s invariable practice, to 
give us each a bath herself, on this night ; enshroud us 
in our night dresses ; and then, just before hearing us 
say our prayers, she came with a tiny blue china cup 
— with pagoda’s and chinamen on it — a silver tea-spoon 
in her hand, and gave both Doc and myself a full half 
cup of castor oil and milk. 

What I could have said here that is remarkable, I 
am at a loss to know ; but when I read this passage 
to my mild eyed mother, she raised her glasses and 
said solemnly, Theodora, stick to the truth.” 

“ I am doing it, to the best of my ability and 
memory, mamma dear,” I answered. “ But what that 
castor oil was meant to accomplish, T am sure I never 
discovered, unless it was given upon the same prin- 
ciple, I have seen dear good natured Aunt Polly ex- 


42 


THE NAUTZ EAMIEY, 


hibit, whilst she stood back of the children’s chairs at 
table, exhorting them to eat more.” 

“ Now Simey, do have another pig’s foot ; and 
Carline, you love string beans, let me give you some 
more ; and Nancy, here’s another wedge of custard 
for you, and Frank do eat up that fried egg, its a 
shame to waste it.” 

But Just as soon as every small stomach was stuffed 
to its uttermost, the paregoric bottle, like an accusing 
Nemesis, was brought forth, and each one dosed with 
the colic antidote ; and I am to-day of the opinion that 
the castor oil was meant to rid us of the whole week’s 
bad effects ; and start us out new, on the next F irst 
Day. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY^ 


43 


CHAPTER VI. 

F OR weeks the househ old moved on at its accustomed , 
steady gait. 

Grandmamma’s dear un wrinkled face and swee, ^ 
blue eyes, were the loadstar which kept us three from 
going very far wrong ; and her low dulcet voice 
shielded us from the latter end of all mischief — punish- 
ment. For who dared gainsay what my stately 
Grandmamma Shelley commanded } Though through, 
out the house, the farm, and the mill, every soul, 
servant and dependant, would have laid down his life 
for her, none the less every word that she spoke was a 
gospel command, which none deemed safe to disobey. 
Did ever warm-hearted cliildren have such a dear, good 
grandmamma as ours } 

What stores of rare old things to show us of rainy 
days ; from my dead grandpapa’s gold knee-buckles, 
to the stiff satin stock, and dainty lace ruffles, yellow 
and costly ; rare old books, which had known three 
centuries of the family history and inside whose brass- 
bound vellum lids were the rude pictures of the 
sixteenth century. All along the margin of an ancient 
and wonderful German Bible — descending from grand- 


44 


THE NA UTZ FAMTL Y. 


papa’s side — were passages scored^in red keel which, 
by reason of our inability to read, struck us with awe 
corresponding. 

And the strange and tender stories with which her 
brain was stored, gave food and quiet for many an hour ; 
while we lived over with our beautiful grandmamma, 
her youth, luxurious and grand as that of a princess. 

Many a piece of evidence, of bygone days, she gave 
us, from out her scrap bag, in the shape of bits of lace 
and velvet, and satin, and whilst our nimble fingers 
fashioned them into dainty, childish ideals of beauty, 
we wondered whether the grand, old Shelley blood 
had found its way into oui' veins ; and whether it 
would show its strength and richness in us, when we 
grew to be man and woman. 

Oh ! wonderful dreamland of childhood ; since 
our barks have slipped loose from your moorings and 
-drifted from out the still waters into a boundless ocean; 
how many a wave has gone over our heads ; how 
often have we stretched impotent hands toward the 
infinite, and cried with Gethsemane’s agony — “ If it 
be Thy will, let this cup pass from me ! ” 
******#**. ^ 

Autumn was dropping crimson and gold drifts at 
the doors ; open them, and the wind puffed an arm- 
ful into the room, every leaf so rich with the tracery 

of blood, that we could not part with a single one 

but stuck them to the wall, pinned them fast to the 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


45 

curtains, made them into knots and branches and 
wreaths, until the room was a beauteous throne, and 
grandmamma, the beautiful queen, with a crimson 
spray in her lace cap, and a yellow knot at her snowy 
throat. 

Oh ! the swelling tide of those days, how it sweeps 
over us even now, and washes all the drift from our 
souls and strands us finally up the summer sands of 
memory. 

There comes to mind an afternoon, which beginning 
in beauty ended in horror. We all sat in grand- 
mamma’s room, mamma and auntie sewing, Frances 
and myself making doll clothes. 

Doc was at the mill. 

All at once, grandma said, “ Leah, why don’t you 
take your work and go over to the mill to Ulric ; he 
canpot leave, and he gets so lonely } ” And we of 
course began at once to clamor, — 

“ Do go, mamma and take us ! ” It ended in our 
small sewing being folded away, our sun-bonnets 
brought and all setting out jubilant. 

Reaching the mill we found uncle and Doc alone, 
the men being sent otherwhere. 

The two, with much hard work and laughter, were 
trying to place afresh log, the saw was stopped.’’ 

“ Leah,” said uncle, ‘‘ do you think you could raise 
the end of the log just a little with this crow-bar.? Doc 
has been trying, but he is not heavy enough ! ” 


46 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“ Of course I can,” answered mamma. She placed 
us two safely, took the lever and raised as instructed; 
in a moment the work was done ; Uncle Ulric had 
turned to start the saw, when mamma, stepping back, 
trod upon a trap-door and disappeared ; our shrieks 
drew uncle’s hands away just in time, and taking in 
the whole disaster at a glance, he, too, went through 
the trap-door into the fore-bay. We stood above, and 
holding fast each other’s hands, looked down. There 
sat Uncle Ulric astride a great beam, holding mamma 
by a handful of her dress, while the boiling, surging 
waters were tearing and sucking her away from him, 
mamma 'Was white and dead, and uncle was giving 
out ; that even we children could see. 

Doc had run a quarter of a mile away to a field 
where some of the men were ploughing. It seemed 
ages and ages before they came ; and when they did, 
three of them could hardly drag her out of the clutches 
of the wicked, angry waters. 

How wonderful is the influence of death upon the 
coarsest and roughest of human kind. Those three 
ploughmen bore mamma, as tenderly as a white angel 
could, up the race and along the narrow path into 
the house, and laid her on the bed, a poor broken 
white lily. 

The doctor came, and they rolled, and rubbed, and 
administered stimulants with little effect ; finally, such 
a strange thing was done ! I can never forget that* 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. , 


47 


One of the girls brought the bellows, and they put it 
to mamma’s mouth and pumped the great thing. 

“ Doc, what are they doing that for ? ” I asked. 

Blowing the breath into her,” he said. 

“ Oh, Doc ! I’m so glad ; that must be the way God 
does it. I’ve tried so long to find out, and now I 
know it.” 

And the impression never left ir^e. I have but to 
cover my eyes to-day and travel back to those bygone 
times, and I can see, as vividly as then, God take into 
his palms a lump of clay, and with wonderful manip- 
ulations change it into a little white image, pulseless 
and still. Then, more wonderful still, God holds the 
tiny form in his arms, two beautiful angels come, 
bearing a great shining “ bellows ” ; they put it to the 
baby’s lips and breathe life into it so gently ; and 
when it stirs and moves, ahother angel floats up with 
a wicker basket, made by celestial fingers and lined 
with down from angel wings ; and then, most wonder- 
ful of all, the baby is laid within, and God stoops and 
blesses it, and the angel faces touch its rosebud 
mouth, and then the golden rope goes sliding through 
their hands, and the baby swings away from the In- 
finite ; down, down, down ; past comets and meteors 
and countless worlds ; through clouds of purple and 
gold, until it drops into the lap of the Finite, with 
the fingermarks of heaven yet fresh upon it. 

Mamma came slowly back to life, but took long to 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


48 

mend and recover from the shock, and I grew more 
serious than ever, and admonished the rest unspar- 
ingly ; consoling Uncle Ulric by telling him that his 
hair hadn’t got so very gray, and there were only two 
more of us left to be “ drownded,” and maybe, if he 
would be very good. God would be kind to him and 
let them off. 

But, somehow, that didn’t seem to comfort him very 
much, for his hair curled tighter than ever, and I 
always knew by that when he was very much wor- 
ritted,” as Aunt Peggy called it. 

Time drifted us on to Christmas eve. All arrayed 
in our white gowns, we marched into the sitting-room 
in procession, down the great, old-fashioned chimney 
of which we had settled it that Santa Claus must 
come. 

We each bore a great soup-plate and a stocking ; 
for I wouldn’t eat a bite of candy, not I, if Santa 
Claus put it in a stocking ; so the plates were re- 
quisite. 

Having with the help of the elders hung the stock- 
ings and settled the plates to our satisfaction ; having 
had a game of romps with Uncle Ulric, who twisted 
our gowns into screws and drove a team of three-in- 
hand about the room, until the roof was ready to fall 
with the noise, we were finally driven in the same 
fashion upstmrs, tucked into our several beds, and 
told, that we might talk just a few minutes, and must 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL Y. ■ 


49 


then go to sleep, in order to give Santa Claus a 
chance. 

“Nautz, Nautz!” said Doc. 

“ Huh ” 

“ What you going to get } ” 

“ A slate an’ a pair of buckoned slippers, an’ 
clocked stockins, an’ a book what tells ’bout the 
witches.” 

“ Oh ! The’dora, shivered Frantztony. 

“Yes I will. I’m goin’ to be one myself when I 
grow big ’nough.” 

“Just you do, Natuz Nautz, don’t you be a muff,” 
said Doc. 

Not in the least knowing what a “ muff ” was, and 
not liking to exhibit my ignorance to my superior 
power, Doc, I garnered the word for future medita- 
tion and investigation ; meantime asking, — 

“ What are you goin’ to have, Docie ? ” 

‘ Well, I guess 1111 have a pair of skates, and some 
marbles, and a box of crayons, and a lot of drawin’ 
paper and a cutter, and lots and gobs of things.” • 

“ What_y/??/ goin’ to get, Frantztony.? ” 

“ Don’t know,” she answered. 

“ I know,” shouted Doc. 

' “What .? ” asked Frantztony, with interest. 

“ Oh, a new hymn-book, and a bottle of blue sugar, 
and a doll baby, and a yellow sampler, with a red 
Probable Son in a green father’s arms.” 


5 ® 


THE NA UTZ TAMIL Y, 


“ That’ll be nice,” answered Frantztony. 

I thought vou’d like ’em,” said Doc. 

And the door opened, and Aunt Dora put her head 
inside and told us to be quiet and go to sleep, because 
Santa Claus had a great many places to go, and it was 
very late already. 

So we all cuddled under the blankets, and the reg- 
ular breathing of Doc and Frantztony soon assured 
me that they were in the “ Land of Nod,” as Aunt 
Peggy called it. But my eyes wouldn’t stay shut. I 
weighted them down with the bedclothes, and 
thought, “ Now they’ll stay,” but the instant I pushed 
the blankets off, the lids flew open; then I began to 
wonder why the big folks didn’t go to bed too, if Santa 
Claus was in such a hurry ; then I thought I would 
just sit up and look if I could see or hear anything ; 
that wasn’t satisfactory; I would just creep to the 
window and catch a sight of Santa Claus’ “ sleigh 
and eight tiny reindeer,” but the snow iay white and 
untracked ; now, maybe, he had gone around to the 
back of the house, so as not to be seen, and I would 
miss him after all. 

I would just go downstairs and peep into the 
sitting-room. 

Gathering my gown in my hand, my little bare feet 
slid from step to step, and finally reached the door, 
which stood by happy chance ajar ; but what do I see 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


SI 

Oh, beautiful dream ! — vanished. Oh, childish faith ! 
— gone. 

Uncle Ulric is untying packages, from out of which 
come books and slates, shoes and skates, crayons and 
candies and raisins and almonds. 

Mamma sits in an armchair before a famous bed of 
coals, shaking a great cornpopper. 

Grandmamma, with the beautiful face running over 
with smiles, is putting the last stitches upon the 
coveted clocked stockings — and, behold ! in at the 
the opposite door comes Aunt Dora, a great pan of 
apples and nuts in her hand ; and, stooping, actually 
divides them among those three dishes. Oh ! Santa 
Claus, dead ! Oh ! beautiful dream, lost ! Oh ! bubble 
of faith> burst ! 

Two cold little feet go wearily up the stairs; two 
cold little hands hold the white gown to my mouth, 
lest my sobs shall be heard, and then I creep into 
bed and shiver and shrink, and try to think I have 
dreamed it. But the morning comes, and I only see 
again what I saw through the brack of the door last 
night, and I have no hope left to cling to. 

Henceforth and fprever, Santa Claus is no longer, a 
myster}^ of goodness, and half the charm of Christmas 
morning is gone for me, who know so much, and must 
keep on knowing it for all time, without daring to 
ease the burden of my heart by telling Doc and 
Frantztony Nautz. 


52 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


CHAPTER VIL 

“ Ma, mam, mamma, marm ! ” shouted Doc from the 
foot of the stairs, as though he was giving the parts 
of a Latin verb. I put my head over the balusters 
and asked, — 

“ Please, Docie, may I go too ? ” 

“ Go where, Nautz Nautz ? ’’ 

“ Where you’re goin’.” 

“ I didn’t say I was going anywhere ! ’’ 

“ But I feel yQU are,” I answered. 

Well, s’pose you feel mamma, and see whether 
.she’ll let me go into town v/ith Big John.” 

“ Can I go, too } ” 

“ Yes, if you leave your dolls and patchwork home, 
and sit still, and don’t bother.” 

“ I kale dolls and patchwork, an’ Pll be still as a 
mouse, an’ I’ll only talk to myself.” 

“ All right ; hurry ! ” s 

“ Mamma,” said I, going into her room, Docie 
want^ to go to town, an’ Big John says he’ll take care 
of us, and won’t let us get drownded, nor run over, 
nor nothin’ ; and we’ll bring you a big letter from 
papa. May I go ” 


THE NAUTZ RAMILY. 


53 


You are sure about not getting drow7ided and the 
big letter ? ” asked mamma, laughing. 

Whereupon I went through a dumb show of cross- 
ing my heart for answer. 

Very well, bring your things ; don’t keep John 
waiting.” 

Such a ride ; do you remember it, Doc ? Perch'bd 
just back of Big John, on top of a load of boards from 
the sawmill ; the soft side of a sheepskin to sit on; 
the springless waggon lurching into the deep ruts of 
the mud road ; Big John managing the horses dexter- 
ously with one hand, and holding me to the centre of 
gravity with the other ? I had been specially careful 
to say nothing of John’s load, when asking permission 
to go. The ride in I hadn’t counted on as being 
much ; the ride oui was the jolly thing which drew 
me. 

But there dawned upon me, as we bumped along, a 
feeling not altogether new ; that it was much grander 
to be a 7nan, and face danger and hardship, and — 
earning one’s own living, to sec the outcome of your 
labor in dollars and cents ; in broad wheat fields, fresh 
ploughed and sown ; or even in new fences, and ricks 
and houses and barns, things women coidd 7iot do 
than to be a woman and work gossamer baby caps and 
drip lace from the needles like mamma did. 

« I never saw any return she had for all that work, 
which I knew pricked her fingers and hurt her eyes. 


54 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


Why did they do it, then, I wondered ? Not just in 
this strain, perhaps, but something akin to it ; but 
having given my word to Doc to be “ still as a mouse,” 
I could not speak, and therefore the thought went re- 
volving in my small cranium, a thing to be worked 
out in after years ; and meantime we had traversed 
the mile of road from the mill to the town. 

Then we drove into the busy place, and straight to 
the lumber yard. 

Big John took me down, and Doc scrambled off 
nimbly ; then he said we might play “ hide and seek ’ 
among the board piles, whilst he unloaded ; and such 
a grand game as we had up and over and around the 
great stacks of boards ; until by the time- John had 
finished, our breath was gone, and we were tired and 
ready to go. 

“ Master Doc, just hand me up that piece of board, 
and ril fix a seat, so that Miss The’dora can be more 
comfortable,” said John. 

Oh ! don’t bover for me, Big John. I ain’t a 
muff,” I retorted, sententiously, using Doc’s word at a 
venture.' 

“ What s that asked Big John, opening his great 
blue eyes, until I thought how much they looked like 
summer clouds. 

Tell him, Doc ! I said, glad of such a grand op- 
portunity for a definition. 

“ Well,” answered Doc, “a muff, you know, is what 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


55 


we fellows call anybody who is particularly sofi ; a 
regular 7nuff, you know.” 

Big John laughed loud and hearty, while I pondered 
this lucid detinition, and mentally determined that 
come what might I would at least steer clear of ever 
becoming anything so dreadful. 

To-day, I really believe, that what Doc meant by 
the term “ muff ” was a moral coward, one who 
shirked hardship, and mewed himself up, until he be- 
came a parasite and dependent. Believing this, I find 
to-day also that Doc was right, and that all the evil 
which has come into my life has come through moral 
cowardice in some form or other. 

Big John finally settles the board to his satisfaction’ 
and stooping his great length, lifts me gently in his 
brawny hands to the middle of the se^t, where he has 
placed the sheepskin ; and thus, with my feet dang’ 
ling between Doc and John, we go rumbling and rat- 
tling up the main street of Hillsboro, laughing and 
talking, until we reach the Post Office, where Doc 
holds the reins, with the ^air of ,one accustomed to 
handling spirited animals, while Big John disappears 
in the office, and presently returns with the veritable 
big letter I had promised mamma, with a row of yel- 
low queen’s heads on the upper side, and a whole stick 
of sealing wax (as I thought) dripped over the under 
side for safety. 

I immediately claim the package as my own 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


56 

especial property, while Big John goes into an ad- 
joining baker shop and buys a great paper of 
goodies. 

Then the horses heads are turned, and with erect 
ears, and nostrils which seem to sniff fresh oats and 
sweet clover with every homeward step and passing 
breeze, we rumble and bump over the uneven road in 
half the time it had taken before. 

Aunt Peggy comes out to open the great gate, but 
catching sight of me, lets the great wooden latch fall 
again, pushes up her glasses, as if they interfered 
with her sight, elevates her hands, and cries : “ Massy 
on us, what’s the matter with the child 1 she’s been 
and hurt herself ! ” 

Big John stoops down and looks into my face, and 
finds, sure enough, that my mouth and chin are blood- 
red. 

Aunt Peggy fumbles in every pocket for her hand- 
kerchief, while I having conveyed my fingers to my 
mouth, to which they adhere, break into laughter, and 
cry,— 

“ Don’t you be ’fraid. Aunt Peg. Nothin’ ’ll hurt 
me ; I’se been eatin’ strawbellies.” 

“ Strawberries, and the frost not out the ground ; 
chile, don’t you tell me that.” 

“ Made of sugar,” put in Big John, grinning. 

“ Bless me, said Aunt Peggy, as she swung the 
gate wide and we rolled into the barn yard, “ I just 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


57 


guess that chile will be the death of me yet, the way 
she does worrit one with her pranks. I suspec’ there 
was a mistake made when she was born ; she aint no 
more like Miss Frances than nothin’. Here that 
blessed angel has been and made a pile of the beauti- 
fullest quilt patches as you never saw, a singin’ her 
sweet hymns all the time, while you’ve been prancin’ 
to town and back with two men, as isn’t at all belike 
a young lady.” 

Here Doc_ swelled in with Aunt Peggy Dawson, 
you just let my sister alone ; she belongs to me^ and I 
mean to take cai;e of her, and won’t have her 
abused ! ” 

“ La sakes, Master J’rome, I didn’t mean nothin’ ; 
but she do scare us so,” answered my nurse. 

Never you mind getting scared for her. Aunt 
Peggy, she ain’t one of the kind that needs watching,” 
Big John put in, for my defence , whereupon I sprang 
upon the seat, put my arms about his great head, and 
hugged it heartily; feeling my importance, as the 
centre of the present discussion, I dropped my arm 
about the burly neck, and said with succinct prophecy, 
holding up papa’s letter, — 

I’m goin’ away. Aunt Peggy Dawson, and then 
you'll be sorry.” 

“ How do you know that you’re goin’ away ? ” asked 
she. 

’Cause I feel that papa’s letter says so ! ” 


THE HAUTZ FARTILY. 


58 

Then Big John set me on the ground, and I raced 
Doc into the house, and we burst into the sitting- 
room together to deliver the letter. 

Grandmamma sat in her great easy chair, a German 
hymn-book on her lap, from which she had been read- 
ing ; when we saw that we became demure at 
once, and walked in gravely to hand mamma her 
packet. 

“ Theodora ! ” said grandma’s sweet voice. 

Yes, grandmamma ! ” 

What is the matter with your face } ” 

Strawbellies. I saved you some, grandma.” And 
here I inserted one between the sweet old lips. 

Grandmamma adjusted her glasses, examined my 
face, and advised me to go to Aunt Peggy and be 
washed. But just here mamma exclaimed, — 

“ Mother, what do you believe Simon is thinking of 
now ? ” 

“ Dear only knows. Another patent, I suppose.” 

“ No,” said mamma. “ He talks of coming home, 
and taking us all over.” 

“ Leah ! Leah ! ” was the only answer grandma 
made, but I saw the dear blue eyes drowned in tears, 
and only waiting to hug and kiss her, away I ran to 
Aunt Peggy, brimful of news. 

“ Aunt Peg, wash my hair an’ comb my face quick,” 
I said. “ I told you I was goin’ away, an’ I am. I’m 
goin’ to \J-rope. Papa says he’s cornin’ for us ; an’ 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 


59 

we’re goin’ just as soon as he comes. An’ now ain’t 
you sorry you ’bused me.” 

“ Bless the chile, what’ll I do without you to worrit 
me ? ” My old legs will get stiff when they don’t have 
you to trot after.?” And here the dear old brown 
eyes ran over, and I hugged and cuddled her and pro- 
mised to give her “ my wittley wite wooster ” and my 
“ wite wabbit ” and all my quilt patches if she wouldn’t 
cry. 

But Aunt Peggy was — from the moment she knew 
my prophecy had proved true — more convinced than 
ever that there was a “mistake” somewhere when I 
was born. The idea of our crossing the Atlantic, 
which had at first been rejected: as ridiculous and out- 
of the question, finally came to be a settled and ac- 
cepted fact, to which the house became gradually ac- 
customed. 

And when another letter came, saying that before 
it had fairly reached us papa woitld have sailed, every- 
one bestirred themselves to put all things in order for 
his reception, and our going. 

Morning and evening of the same day found me at 
my vigil, looking wistfully up and down the road for 
the “ white horse ” upon which I knew papa would 
come, if my belief was true. 

And yet after all I missed his coming — for instead 
of arriving at the rising or the setting of the sun, he 


6o 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


came unexpectedly to all, in the full noontide, when 
- every one was busy with his own affairs. 

How much he was altered ; how grand and impos- 
ing he had become, He went away with a smooth 
face and the complexion of a girl ; he returned to us 
with a full set of English whiskers, - and a face 
bronzed by the long sea voyage. He talked familiarly 
of the Queen, Lord Mayor and Aldermen ; of insti- 
tutes, receptions, and masque balls, which he had at- 
tended. 

Without doubt, papa had grown to be yery impos- 
ing, and for days I ceased to worrit poor Aunt Peggy, 
who went about the house with red eyes, and the 
corner of her apron continually bedewed with tears. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


6i 


CHAPTER VIII. 

But Aunt Peggy was right ; the more I revolved her 
thought, the more it gathered momentum, until the 
idea that I was either “born lucky,” or “done pos- 
sessed,” became a part of my creed : and, that there 
was plenty of collateral evidence to support such belief, 
no reader of this history will deny. March had “come 
in like a lion” — and the untamable winds had made me 
“mad with joy,” as my sunbonnet hung about my neck 
by the strings, my white curls flew in a mass behind 
and by main force of will, I propelled my small body 
against the rushing air currents, swallowing with an 
ecstatic thrill, great mouthfuls of ether, which I felt 
certain flowed straight down to me, through the gates 
of pearl. 

Nothing in all nature ever gave me the same joy as 
the wind, and yet I cannot explain it for the simple rea- 
son that I never could lay bare to the microscopic eye 
of analysis, those things and feelings, which being born 
with me, I felt were' God’s last, sacred gifts, before my 
wicker basket, had been dropped through heaven’s 
opaque veil. 

April had coaxed the earth with smiles, and wooed 


62 


THE NAUTZ FAMIL Y. 


her with tears, until at last she gave evidence of her 
silent joy, with clustered knots of shy hyacinths, and 
bluebells which rung their fairy chimes upon the air , 
then as she bolder grew, the fragrant jonquin followed, 
and, after, gay bunches of daffadowndillies. 

The time for our departure for “U-rope’’ drew slowly 
on, and mamma and papa began to go about among old 
friends, to tea drinkings, and farewell gatherings. 

One glorious afternoon. Doc Frantztony and myself 
with a laudable desire to emulate the example of our 
elders, begged leave to walk up the race about a mile, 
to spend an hour or two, and say good-by to the two 
putty-faced Whitlow boys. Permission gained, fresh 
dresses donned and the , finishing touches put on by 
Aunt Peggy, off we set elate — Doc in the middle, hold- 
ing a hand- of each having promised nurse not to let go 
of them until we reached our destination: — however 
that restriction was of small moment, for what girl 
wouldn’t have been proud and willing to be led by 
such a dark-eyed, handsome boy-knight as St. Jerome 
De Graff .? 

In this fashion, we came near the Whitlows — and the 
putty-faced boys descrying us afar,as they swung on the 
garden gate, tumbled off and cantered to meet us 
shouting, — 

“Hi Doc come to spend the afternoon } ” ' 

** Yes !” 

“ And stay to tea ? ’’ 


THE HA UTZ FAMTL Y. 


&3 


“ If you can have it by four o’clock,” answered Doc. 

“ To be course we will, let’s go to th’ kitchen and 
tell mother.” 

So away we all stepped in a bunch, around the 
back door, which stood open, showing mother Whit- 
low in the niidst of “ crullers.” 

We all sniffed the savory smell. “ Whew ! ain’t 
that jolly ! ” said Doc. I heaved a deep sigh and 
remarked, — 

“ Nautz-Nautz you’re glad you didn’t die when 
you was born ! ” 

“ Wlvy } ” asked the biggest putty-face. 



Here Frantztony dropped into her habitual tune, 
when well pleased, viz. 

“ I am glad I’m in.,this army.” 

So am I ! ” said Doc. And then mother Whit- 
low’s kindly, rosy face turned and beamed upon us ; 
and hastily wiping the flour from her hands upon her 
apron, with which in turn she powdered her face, she 
kissed us all around ; admired our new dresses, took 
off our bonnets, and went into raptures over Frantz- 
tony’s curls, and ended by tying a big apron over 
each and putting two great crispy, brown crullers in 
the hands of every one of us. 

The boys were dismissed to the barnyard : whilst 
we two sat and devoured crullers to our hearts, con- 
tent, and told all about our intended trip. 


64 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“ Ain’t you afraid to cross the ocean ? ” asked 
mother Whitlow. Frantztony gave a little shiver, 
and held her peace. 

“ I ain’t afraid, nothing’ll hurt me ! ” I answered, 
scrutinizing a fresh cruller and deliberating which 
side to begin upon. 

‘‘ Why won’t anything hurt you } ” and mother 
Whitlow dropped a new lot of crullers into the his- 
sing lard. 

“ Guess I’m charmed ; born lucky, you know.” 

“ Hear the child.” 

She never does get hurt,” chimed in Fpantz- 
tony — “ she jumped from the haymow down on the 
barn floor : and got drownded, and eat Indian turnips, 
and drank lye ; and now she’s got a green snake, and 
a great lot of spiders as big as my thumb, with yellow 
and black stripes ’round them for pets, and nothin’ 
hurts her.” 

“ Gracious me, The’dora, what’ll become of you 
when you run the length of your tether } ” asked 
Mother Whitlow. 

For a moment, I was nonplussed, then I decided 
the question by answering grandiloquently — 

“ Guess ril/2>^^ it.” 

Whatever made Mother Whitlow laugh so hard, I 
never found out, but felt it was of little consequence 
to me, whilst milk and crullers continued to exist. 

By the time the boys had shown us last year’s colt, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 




this spring’s calves, which poked their soft noses into 
our hands to be stroked ; and the first brood of fluffy 
young chickens — we heard a blast from the dinner 
horn and there in the doorway stood the matron, 
awaiting our coming to tea. Crullers had somewhat 
impaired my appetite, so I had time to entertain good 
old farmer Whitlow whilst waiting for “ curds and 
cheese cakes.” 

A great old-fashioned clock stood in the corner of 
the kitchen, and the long pendulum went swinging to 
and fro inside the glass door amusing me much, when 
all at once Frantztony broke up my revery with, — 

“ Doc ! it’s four o’clock.” ^ 

“And I’m afeered it’s going to storm,” drawled the 
old man. 

What a hustling on of bonnets, and a hurried saying 
of good-by’s, but out of the lane at last, we started 
on a brisk trot, whilst the clouds grew darker, and the 
wind whistled ominously. Half way home, here came 
mamma panting ; and now, mammoth drops of rain 
began to fall and beat inside our sun-bonnets. Doc 
and Frantztony ran ahead— mamma and I brought up 
the rear. It grew black as night ; the lightning cut 
the darkness into pieces, which cemented instantly. 

Doc and Frantztony too]^ refuge in last years iron- 
weeds, mamma sought shelter under a great tree, but 
Doc’s white face peered out in a flash and he pleaded 
with her to go from under it ; so on we started, pelted 


66 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


and beaten, all the weird in my nature revelling in 
wind and rain — nearing home — and again mamma 
takes shelter within an old, tumbledown cowshed, 
long ago abandoned. Doc and Francis run ahead to 
the house ; the clouds begin to burst and turning out 
a little of their silver linings, break up the night, while 
the rain comes more gently. 

We will start again, dear,” says mamma, and out 
we go, hand in hand ; but scarcely two rods lie be- 
tween, when the superannuated logs creak and yield 
and the whole building comes sidelong to the ground 
with a great crash. We see Uncle Ulric standing in 
the house door shading hiS eyes from the lightning,' 
he sees Doc and Frances and cries, — 

“ Where is your mother and Dick } ” 

They went into the old shed,” weep both. 

And uncle groans, — 

“ My God ! my God ! ” 

Mamma and I pick our way around the fallen tim- 
ber, get clear of the iron weeds, and come in sight, 
and Uncle Ulric rushing down the garden path cries, — 
“ God be praised ! ” 

“ Nothin’ll hurt meV I remark. 

The last thing to be done before leaving for “ U- 
rope ” was to have our daguerreotypes taken ; none of 
those modern inventions on tin. Grandmamma in- 
sisted that they must be the genuine article, morocco 
case and all. Hence, the artist, having word in 


rifE NA U TZ FA MIL y. 6 7 

advance, consulted the almanac for a fair day, and sent 
us word accordingly. 

As behooves the dignity and importance of the 
occasion, we are “ up to time ; ” the artist groups us 
■to his mind. Mamma wears a plum-colored silk, with 
a long pointed waist, and earrings which touch her 
shoulders ; papa looks like a devout clergyman, with 
his clasped hands and black clothes ; I feel very un- 
comfortable because my head is screwed in a pump ; 
Frances looks natural ; while Doc’s rolling Byron- 
collar makes me think, — 

“ Collar, where are you goin’ with that boy } ” 

But despite all these things, we are taken at last 
^ and come up peffeet — according to the artist — and 
homeward .we roll again. 

I never see that picture, but I go into spasms of 
laughter, wondering how ever dear old grandmamma 
could have been so completely satisfied and delighted 
with her ministerial son ; her solemn daughter ; her 
eyeless Dick and collarry Doc. 

Frantztony alone redeeming the group from being a 
botch — so fastidious have our tasks grown in these 
latter days. 

But grandmamma. Aunt Dora and Uncle Ulric 
prized that picture as a rare work of art, for years, and 
why should we laugh now t 

* * t j- * 


68 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Nothing remaining to be clone, the last good-bys 
said, we leave for New York, from whence we embafk 
on the day following. 

Of the passengers and vessel, I remember almost 
nothing. How it comes that my usually retentive 
memory could ever let slip all the circumstances and 
people by which I was surrounded during that three 
weeks voyage, I am unable to account for, save that 
everything material was swallowed in ocean and sky. 
Nothing but blue dome above, in which great billowy 
clouds were drifting eternally; nothing but an 
emerald bowl below, which around the horizon turned 
up its brim until it touched the sky and formed a 
great undulating sphere, in the centre of which our 
vessel dipped and floated like a bubble. 

The mystery of sky and ocean were so awful, and 
fraught with a wonder so profound to me, that mind 
and heart had no room for anything beside,— hence, 
while I forget all else, I see the sky yet illuminated 
by the setting sun, and feel the intoxicating roll of 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


69 


the waves beneath me, or am conscious that my 
cheeks are tingling from the salty spume of some au- 
dacious “ white cap,” while 1 stand clinging to the 
rail, drawing through my hungry eyes the whole of 
the changeful beauty of firmament and sea, with 
which my own tumultuous nature throbs in unison, 
and from which my responsive soul stores food for 
after days of famine. 

Mary of England, dying of disappointment and 
grief, said that the word “ Calais ” would be found 
engraved upon her heart. Had I died in those days, 
I doubt not the fathomless depths of sky and ocean 
would have been pencilled upon mine. 

But there came a day when all this beauty was a 
thing to be remembered, but not seen ; a day when 
out of boundless expanse and freedom, we landed in 
Liverpool mire and smoke. Ugh ! my sensitive 
soul shrank within me ; was this the place papa 
meant to take us to ; ////k what he discoursed so elo- 
quently about } ugh ! 

What a bustle and scurry ; what odors and filth ! 

My wings were clipped : I felt certain I would 
never again be able to fly, there was no room for 
that. England with her twenty-seven millions of 
people, hadn’t a mouthful of air fresh enough for me 
to breathe with the old exultation, nor room enough 
for the poor little American waif to flap her freedom- 
loving wings, alas ! 


70 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL K 


And when we jolted over the cobble stones, to 
the hotel, in one of those infamous vehicles, upon two 
wheels, by the time we were set down, I had ready 
prepared in my mind, a synopsis of my verdict of 
England and her people. 

“ Docie,” I said, when an hour or two after we 
walked down the hall to the dining-room, ‘‘ Docie, 
please hold me tight ! ” 

“ What’s the matter, Dick, ain’t afraid ? ” 

“ Afraid ? no ! but somethin’ hurts me, Docie.” 
“ No, please don’t, Docie, she couldn’t cure it, no- 
body can ; its a deep down hurt,” I answered, put- 
ting my hand over my heart to indicate the place of 
distress. 

Doc said no more, but his fingers closed fast 
over mine, and when I looked in his eyes, I felt sure 
that he too, had a deep, down hurt, from being pulled 
up from the roots. 

But when we were all seated about a private table, 
which papa had ordered, with a special dinner. Doc 
tried his best to reassure and amuse me. 

Two waiters in linen bibs, came sliding over the 
floor, carrying covered dishes ; the first set his down 
before papa, and uncovered it. 

“ Oh Doc, what’s that ? ” I cried. 

It’s a lepus timidus,” answered Doc exhibiting 
his learning. 

“ A what .? ” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 


71 


A hare,” said Doc in English. 

“ What is it for, Docie } ” 

“To eat ! ” 

“ Why Doc, it has eyes, and ribbons in its ears, 
and a cabbage leaf in its mouth ; it’s alive ! ” 

Here papa whetted the carving knife dextrously ; 
made a pass or two, and ended in taking off a leg 
clean. I shuddered and covered my eyes. When I 
looked up again, the “lepus timidus ” was annihilated, 
so far as form went, and Frantztony was turning over a 
piece upon her plate with a more than usual solemnity. 
I watched Doc closely, he received his plate without 
a word, but his upper lip curled just a wee, and he 
slid the thing to one side with his fork. 

When my turn came to be served, papa said — 

“ Theodora, what part will you have.’’ And I 
elevated my democratic head and replied sturdily, — 

“ I never eat /fw things, papa ; I want some beans 
and radishes.” 

Papa laughed, but no amount of persuasion from 
him or mamma could alter my determination, and 
presently all found that they had tried to their satis- 
faction, the English delight — a hare dinner. 

And I breathed freer when papa whispered the 
waiter to carry it off, ribbons, curled parsley, slivered 
carrot, and “ lepus timidus ” heaped in ignominious 
and dire confusion ; and fresh plates being brought, 
the leg of mutton following proved itself more accept- 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


72 

able to our American palates, — whilst Doc delivered 
himself to the audience after this wise, — 

“ I don’t like anything that slips out of its skin 
when it jumps.” 

“And I don’t like the people, that eat the things, 
that slips out of their skins when they jump,” said 1. 

“ This is the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow 
with the crumpled horn,” laughed papa. 

Here a peculiar cry rent the air and we all turned 
to listen ; was it possible we could have heard aright ? 
there it is again. “ Cat me — at ! Cat me — at ! 
We children gazed at each other in stupefied wonder. 

“ Heaven preserve us,” cried mamma. “ What 
does that mean ; it is not possible they eat ‘ Cat 
meat ’ in enlightened Europe } and we are going to 
board. I shall never feel safe as to the nature of 
what I am eating.” 

How papa laughed whilst he explained that the cry 
of “ cat meat ” was full of innocence, since the ven- 
dors thereof were simply serving all the feline pets of 
the neighborhood with their supper. 

Then he proved the truth of this statement by 
taking us to the window and pointing out the crier, 
about whom a number of cats mewed and rubbed, 
while every area rail in sight was decorated with a 
waiting grimalkin. 

“Astonishing!” said Frantz^ony, and the English 
character rose ninety-five per centum in the esteem 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


73 


of Doc and Nautz Nautz. And then papa called for 
a bottle of wine, and under its influence we all grew 
more cheery, and Doc and I found the lumps in our 
thjoats gradually diminishing and the weight of the 
yellow, murky atmosphere, not quite so awful to bear, 
and thus passed our first day in “ U-rope.” 


74 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


CHAPTER X. 

Notwithstanding the unpropitious nature of our 
first impressions, they gradually lost somewhat of 
their intensity with familiarity, so mobile and plastic 
is the soul anatomy of childhood. Finding that Liv- 
erpool was not to be our stopping-place, but that papa 
had only deemed a night’s rest essential after the long 
sea voyage, — which / would have had continue for- 
ever and forever, if I could, — our spirits rose some- 
what when we took the cars for London the next 
morning. 

The novel idea of “ coache.s,” which accommodated 
only our individual selves, and the being locked in by 
the guardsman as if we were a set of criminals being 
returned to justice, rather put a damper upon our 
relenting judgments of the English character ; how- 
ever, we bore up philosophically, as was our wont^ 
flattened our noses against the windows in hope of 
seeing something through the drizzling fog and 
watched Frantztony contentedly chewing a bit of 
sweetened calamus, which papa had extracted from 
his vest pocket. 

I am not sure that big people know what torture 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


75 


contraction of space is, to the buoyant child-nature ; 
whilst Frantztony seemed still iresh enough to hum 
a tune placidly, Doc and Nautz Nautz were cramped, 
chilled to the core by the time they reached the ter- 
minus. 

The guardsman unlocking the coach door, we found 
ourselves in a great depot, illuminated by innumerable 
rows of winking gas gets, with people crowding all 
ways. Itseemed the middle of the night, it was so 
black and murky, but upon asking papa what time it 
was he consulted his watch and said, “four o’clock.” 

What a country ! ” exclaimed Doc, bursting from 
repression. “ What a country where the people eat 
hares ; lock Christian Americans in the cars ; and 
where it always rains ; and gets dark in the middle of 
the day. Let’s go home, Dick ! ’’ he finished with 
u gulp. 

“We will be there directly,” said papa, misinter- 
preting Doc’s meaning. “You will soon feel com- 
fortable when you find what pleasant rooms and a 
good supper Mrs. Roberts will have ready for us.” 

I hope it wont be hare /” We all three burst out 
at once ; even Fr.anztony stopped in the middle of a 
verse to say that. 

Another hour of jolting in a cab, over the roughest 
of cobble stones brought us to papa’s fixed quarters ; 
and when the kindly landlady had led us upstairs, to 
a cozy suit of apartments prepared for our coming, in 


76 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


the drawing-room of which burnt a delightful grate 
fire, the kettle singing on the hob, and the table 
spread in the middle of the floor, we tossed our things 
into the four corners, caught Frantztony’s unwilling 
hands and forced her to circle about the room with 
us. 

Mamma took all of papa’s attention, for she was 
white as chalk from exhaustion — and this makes me 
remember, here, that I never knew mamma to be 
“well.” Papa was so strong and sturdy; and yet, for 
all of that he went “ away before any of us, and left 
mamma. 

We soon settled down into English customs, and 
became used to being stared at, because of our Amer- 
can costumes. 

Doctor was installed at once, as a student at the 
Mechanic’s Institute, where he progressed rapidly ; 
becoming especially proficient in crayon drawing, 
which he turned to use by producing the most life-like 
and loathsome boa-constrictors, and other venomous 
reptiles. 

These he laid in Frantztony’s way, whenever we 
were gathered about the drawing-room table after tea; 
for the express purpose of seeing her suddenly draw 
up her feet, and sit upon them, in a spasm of fear. In 
after years, the Institute conferred the degree of A.M. 
upon Doc, but I don t thi7tk it was for snake-drawi 7 i^. 

We two girls were sent around the corner of 


THE NA UTZ TAMIL Y, 


77 


Threadneedle Street,” to a private school. Two 
little Scotch boys in Highland dress, called for and 
chaperoned us going and coming every day. 

Here again I forget all about the girls as individuals, 
but I remember distinctly they had everyday so much 
of a “ sewing task ” to perform, all wearing “ lap-bags,” 
divided into compartments, for thread, thimble and 
work, and which reminded me ludicrously of a car- 
penter’s apron. 

The boys who did not conduct themselves in a 
manner pleasing to the teacher, were detailed to thread 
our needles, or sit upon the dunce block. There were 
a good many bad boys to thread my needle, with 
which I performed some most execrable work, and 
received punishment by having a bad boy help pick it 
out. — Is it allowable here to state that the picking out 
process was far more delightful tome than the putting 
in process 1 

By and by, we became acquainted with a good many 
of papa’s friends, who showed us a great many cour- 
tesies, and sent the “ pale American lady ” baskets 
of hothouse grapes and fruit. 

Among these kind people was a grand old lady, a 
widow, who reminded us of grandmamma, and whom 
we accordingly learned to call Auntie Gale. 

She possessed five wonderful sons, all young men, 
and at home. 

Her only daughter, for whom she mourned cease- 


78 


7'HE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


lessly, and kept the great state drawing-room shrouded 
— was dead. 

She loved children passionately, and took us home 
with her for days at a time, in order to “ rest ” 
mamma. 

The only pleasant recollection of all my London life 
are connected with her house. I loved everything in 
it, from the yellow satin damask window curtains, 
down to the kitchen where “ Miss Ann,” a neat maid, 
in a spotless white apron and immaculate cap, pre- 
sided. 

Auntie Gale’s manly sons turned the house over for 
our amusement, when they came home at night. They 
masqueraded in their stately mother’s garments, 
walked up and down stairs upon stilts, and played 
hide-and-seek with us ; Mr. John always setting me 
on top of the book-case, and piling huge folio’s about 
me, to keep me out of Doc’s and Frantztony’s eye- 
range, and always managing tl;iat I should be the last 
discovered. 

Then, when tea was made, we all danced up to the 
table, where auntie presided arrayed in shimmering 
silk, and the maid Ann, brought a great toasting fork 
to Mr. Joe, who sat nearest the grate, and he made 
the toast and handed the delicate brown slices to Mr. 
Fred who “ buttered it well of both sides,” to my en- 
tire satisfaction. 

These times are the oases in my London desert of 


TFIE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


79 

life ; there was unrestrained freedom nowhere outside 
of that dear old house for me. 

At our boarding place, there was one thing which 
kept me in a chronic state of fear, and thereby so 
circumscribed my freedom, that after long and silently 
enduring this secret oppression, it had its effect. 

My feet danced no more up and down the stairs, 
but slid with the cautionary movements of a youthful 
criminal from step to step, and my voice was dead — 
outside our own rooms. 

The cause of this was the son of our respectable 
landlady. 

I believe Charley Roberts was sent into the world 
by the Prince of Darkness himself to pave the way 
for his own future operations ; but I do most heartily 
absolve his mother of all complicity in the systemati- 
cal torture which he practised upon me, for the reason 
that I was no “ tell-tale,” and was accustomed, like 
Doc, to bear in silence whatever I was unable to set 
right of my own strength, physical or moral. 

I never put my head outside our own doors but 
that boy, with diabolical intent, was ready to perse- 
cute me in a thousand ways ; to spring upon me from 
some landing or corner ; to take rough hold of me in 
the dark, or hold me fascinated by the very monstros-, 
ity of the facial contortions he performed, nicknaming 
me “ Sailor Boy ” from a certain little checkered 
apron I sometimes wore. 


8o 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


Once he actually shoved both Frances and myself 
into a dark closet, slammed the door, turned the rusty 
key in the lock, and ran away. I believe, like Genevra, 
I would have lain there until my bones bleached, 
making no sound, but Frantztony, unused to the 
Roberts boy’s persecutions, kicked and screamed 
until, finally, she was heard by Doc, who rushed in 
his brave, impetuous way, to the rescue. 

“ Who did this, girls ? ” he asked, after succeeding 
with much difficulty in turning the key. 

“Charley Roberts,” Frantztony answered. 

“ I’ll fix him ! ” said Doc, and he disappeared down 
the area stairs. Presently we heard a howl, and look- 
ing out the scullery door saw the Roberts boy 
stretched upon the cobble pavement, whilst Doc 
thumped and pounded the bully to his heart’s content. 

After that I enjoyed comparative peace ; but had 
become so morbidly sensitive from dread of meeting 
that boy that I never ventured alone outside our 
rooms. Once papa. Doc, Franztony and myself had 
a long spell of sickness, during which all my hair fell 
out, and when we were about again it amused me 
strangely to see how altered I had become. It was 
the old soul in a new body. 

It wasn’t Theodora nor Nautz Nautz, nor Dick, 
but a new girl with whom I had to get acquainted ; 
and I couldn’t help but wish that whilst God had been 
about it, He had put my soul back into a bofs body. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


8i 


All the pretty white curls were gone and a thick^ 
soft mass of straight brown hair replaced them. The 
lace cap was taken off a dozen times a day, that I 
might examine my head and get acquainted with it. 

And when one day mamma gave us girls permission 
to go out and walk on the pavement, as we came 
downstairs, hand-in-hand singing : — 

“ If I be I, as I suppose I be, 

I have a little dog at home and he knows me.” 

The Roberts boy sprung upon us, but all at once 
stopped, started, fell back as though uncertain and 
then cried : — 

“ Why, bless me, it’s the Sailor Boy ! ” making a 
pass as though about to snatch my cap. I gathered 
courage and called : — 

“ Doc, come here ! ” whereupon the Roberts boy 
tumbled down the stairs. In the vicinity of our resi- 
dence was a lovely little square, laid out in grass, 
shrubbery and flower beds. 

Here th« nurse girls of the neighborhood brought 
their charges every day to play, whilst they flirted 
with their sweethearts. And this confined space of 
greenery was my heart’s delight ; on fine days Doc or 
mamma accompanied us to this spot, and we spent 
many an hour of comparative enjoyment outside our 
dread of the beadle, who, from the door of his little 
box of a house, watched everything and everybody. 


82 


THE NAUTZ FAMILYT 


Outside the fence the organ-grinders used to come 
and I have been held entranced many a time by the 
sweetest airs ground out of a humble hand-organ, or 
transported with delight at the sound of “ Home, 
sweet Home,” which took me back to grandmamma. 
And when I sometimes learned from the boy's own lips 
their tales of want and suffering and the cruelty of 
their fask-masters, — for many of these children are 
stolen, — my child-heart, oppressed and circumscribed 
by destiny, beat in quick sympathy with theirs. 

We did all we could for these little waifs ; gave them 
the cakes mamma had provided in case of hunger, 

and turned our pockets out in search of the farthings 

% 

which had been meant to buy “ treacle candy.’’ 

How could we eat cake and candy and know that 
the white-faced organ boy was hungry t 

Once mamma found Doc out. The Institute held 
but one session daily. He was always given a lunch 
to take ; one day he came upon a poor crippled 
creature sitting upon the steps of a church holding a 
starved baby to her breast. Doc saw her'; stopped. 
All the manly nature rushed to his pitying eyes ; 
he opened his luncheon basket and laid the contents 
in the woman’s lap. 

The poor starved thing called upon all the saints 
in heaven to bless this boy ; and Doc^ent luncheon- 
less that day and many others ; until mamma seeing 
how exhausted and pale he always looked at dinner 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


83 


time, drew the whole truth from him by dint of coax- 
ing and threats. Thereafter, so long as the woman 
made those church steps her begging place, Doc car- 
ried an extra lunch. 

Papa, who had the tenderest heart for children, 
sympathized with our need and longing for fresh air, 
sunshine and greenness ; and there rarely came a 
sabbath, but he took us to some park, to see the deer 
and swans ; or treated us to a ride in the carriages, 
walking by our sides and pointing out all the beauties 
of God’s great work. 

Once, he took us to Westminster, and showed us 
the marble tombs of England’s illustrious dead ; but 
the great stone images stretched upon the top of each, 
oppressed me terribly. Then and there I determined 
to forbid the putting of one on my grave ; I didn’t 
want to be kept down in that \^y, and it was dreadful 
not to be able to breathe with ease. 

One day we all went down into the tunnel which 
rung beneath the Thames.. That was a terrible task 
for mamma, going down those two hundred odd steps, 
walking the width of the river, stopping to look at or 
buy something of each vendor of wares in his booth, 
and finally ascending, out of the darkness only made 
more apparent, by the gas lights, into the fresh air 
and sunshine. By the time we had visited the various 
parks, Greenwich and Zoological garden’s, we were 
convinced that the English were a great people ; but 


84 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


when one morning mamma and I went with our land- 
lady to the fish market, I was simply dumb with 
amaze. 

How magnificient everything was ; row after row 
of marble slabbed booths upon which lay such fish as I 
never saw ; monster s of the deep, capable of swal- 
lowing me. 

Beautiful sole, salmon, and mackerel which changed 
like diamonds or shimmered like silver, and close be- 
side them, great heaps of tiny baby-fishes, over which 
Mrs. Roberts went into ecstacies of praise, persuading 
mamma to have some— sprats, she called them — for 
dinner. 

Before it escapes my memory, I will say that the 
“ sprat ” dinner was not a success ; the American 
palate repudiated them. 

But when my attention was drawn to a great pile of 
what I thought snails, in the shell, my astonishment 
knew no bounds. 

“ Mamma, mamma, what do they do with snails } ” 

“ Snails ! ” and Mrs. Roberts tossed her head — 
“ they are periwinkles, and delicious. You eat them 
this way,” and here she drew a pin from the cushion 
which stood on the marble slab ; took a shell daintily 
between her thumb and finger, inserted the pin, drew 
the slimy thing out, dropped a grain or two of salt 
upon and swallowed it. 

Ugh ! ” I exclaimed, and a spasm of disgust even 
ran over mamma’s face. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


85 


CHAPTER XL 

About this time, we removed to the house of Mr. 
and Mrs. Paddington of “ Black Horse Brewery.” 

By this removal, I escaped the Robert’s boy, but 
now had two enemies with which to contend. 

The first was Vixen, an abominable little rat-terrier, 
who considered it her bounden duty to tear my clothes 
and snap at my heels, if ever she caught me wander- 
ing in the hall. The second, wrs a most gorgeous 
poll-parrot, who was excessively affectionate if you 
coaxed her with dainties, but veered about and called 
you all the names she could remember if you pre- 
tended not to hear her requests. At times she was 
let out of her cage, and then she immediately began 
in laborious fashion, to ascend to our rooms — hooking 
her bill upon each step and drawing herself up. 

Once seeing her do this, I laughed gleefully at the 
ludicrous sight, calling the rest to come and see her ; 
whereupon she hurled a volley of oaths at me, and 
never failed from that moment to pick at and worry 
me, whenever possible, although gentle and affec- 
tionate to all the rest. 

Happily for me, I made a friend who spared me 
these persecutions whenever she was about. This was 


86 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


Deborah, a young imp, who usually wore a dress 
which hung in slits from the waist to her feet, and 
whose face always bore the marks of sooty fingers. 
Deb, as she was called, was the scullery maid ; she 
was detailed to polish door-knobs, scour the marble 
floor of the hall, clean grates, fetch coal, and do all 
other hard-handed and abominable labor. She never 
came downstairs like any one else ; but, having to go 
up as we all did, saved the down trip by sitting side- 
wise on the balusters and sliding. 

One day she went to the third story ; I stood on 
the landing of the second floor, saw her fix herself for 
the descent, and cried, — 

“ Oh Deb ! please don’t, you’ll fall and get killed.” 

“ Here I go,” she answered. 

And sure enough she did ; she came down with a 
rush, turned the first curve and lost her balance ; I 
saw her coming and caught wildly through the rails, 
but poor Deb’s rags alone remained in my hands ; 
she went on bumping against the winding stairs, and 
fell with a sickening thud upon the marble pavement. 
When I reached her she was bleeding and quivering, 
but not dead, and in a moment I had the house 
aroused. 

Poor Deb was carried to her pallet, and the doctor 
sent for, and after awhile she actually came to, and 
spoke. 

Most wonderful of all, outside of a few broken ribs 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 87 

and a great many bruises she was unhurt, and after 
some weeks was about again. 

The doctor called me a brave little girl, and said I 
had saved her by breaking her fall, but I was convinced 
that Deb was made of gutta-percha, and wouldn’t have 
been hurt any worse if I had been in Kamschatka. 
But from the hour of her recovery. Deb was my 
willing slave, and when Vixen died suddenly from 
poison, she called me into the hall, whispered the 
news in my ear, and seeing my delighted face, began 
a war dance about me ; I believe to this day that 
Deb’s hand administered the fatal dose. Henceforth 
we were friends and our friendship was cemented by 
a mutual exchange of courtesies. Deb ran around the 
corner to assist in laying out my pin money to the best 
advantage, and I sewed up the slits in her dress and 
coaxed her to wash her face. 

Mrs. Paddington had an aunt living with her; a 
woman of means, and bad temper, but whom it was 
convenient to conciliate, on account of being the 
“ next of kin.” 

This aunt fell sick of a fever and died, leaving her 
money and taking her querulous voice to the land of 
shades. She laid in state for some days before burial ; 

one morning Deb came to our drawing-room door 

and called me ; I went into the hall and Deb said, — 

“ Mi.ss Ther’dora, I’ve got a great sight to show 


you. 


88 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


** What is it, Deb ? ” 

“ Come in here,” was all her answer, and I followed. 
There upon the bed lay the aunt, stiff and cold, dressed 
in black ; from each post of the canopied bed a huge 
bunch of funereal plumes waved. 

Their dead blackness and the woman’s white still- 
ness appalled me, and I shuddered ; whereupon Deb 
took my hand and laid it upon the icy one upon the 
bed ; with a shriek I fled, and Deb found to her as- 
tonishment that the entertainment which she had ex- 
pected to afford me had miscarried. 

Not until the day of the funeral, when the body 
was removed downstairs, could I be induced to leave 
our rooms. Then Deb begged so hard that I should 
come down to the front door and see the “ mutes/ ’ 
who stood on either side, in deep mourning, with 
great streamers of crape on hats and arms — both 
looking solemn as owls — that I followed her. 

They stood so still, I thought they were dead, but 
presently one covertly felt in his pocket, drew forth, a 
plug of tobacco, watched an opportunity, took a chew, 
and, replacing it, dropped into solidity again. 

“ What are they standing here for. Deb } ” 

“ Because they’re sorry.” 

“ Sorry for what .? ” 

“ Because she’s dead.” 

“ Poor men, why don’t they come in ?*' 

“ Because they daren’t.” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


89 


“ Ain’t they her relations ? ” Here one of the mutes 
caught the conversation and broke into a grin, but 
speedily restored his countenance. 

“ Ha ! ha ! ” chuckled Deb. “ Haunt’s relations, 
'course they haint, they’re for being sorry.” 

“ Oh ! ” I said in disgust, and cared to look at the 
mutes no longer. 

Although time had rolled the seasons one over the 
other, until several years had passed, and papa, finding 
his last patent bid fair to be of use to every one but 
himself, began sometimes to talk of returning to 
America ; for all the slow flight of those months, I 
looked no more than a child of five, the heavy atmos- 
phere had so retarded development. Doc and Frantz- 
tony were little better, and that was something of a 
consolation ; still I was conscious that people judged 
us by our size and not our age, as witness this fact. 

They had a half holiday at the Institute. Mamma 
had promised Doc that in the afternoon she would go 
with us all to Madame Tussaud’s exhibition of wax- 
works. 

Jubilant, we started, mamma and Frantztony 
leading ; I, between Doc and his boon companion, 
Paul Raines. We reached the entrance ; a grim door- 
keeper received the tickets — we started to pass in, 
suddenly he shouted, — 

“ Hold ! this child can’t enter ! ” pointing to 
poor me. ^ 


90 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


Why ? asked mamma. 

“ How old is she } ” 

“ Over seven,” answered mamma. 

That’ll do to tell,” he replied coarsely. 

Mamma protested, Doc begged, Frances wept, 
Paul took me in his arms and promised to carry me, — 
nothing would appease that obdurate beef-eater, and 
nothing remained but that I must reton. 

Upon that, the whole party faced about : but 
mamma would not allow it, and therefore Paul, Doc 
and Frantztony entered alone. 

It is unnecessary to say that I left “ U-rope ” 
without seeing Madame Tus^aud’s renowned wax 
figures, and with a fall in the rising barometer of my 
good opinion of the national character. 

Beside Aunty Gale’s there was one other house in 
which our presence was always hailed 'with delight. 

Among our new friends, was a dear little couple, 
who worshipped babies ; but having none of their 
own, petted a great tortoise-shell cat. 

With these little people, we speedily became 
favorites. 

One eventful night, papa took Doc and myself by 
the hand, and led us away from Black Horse Brewery, 
past stores and shops and brilliant gin palaces, to the 
cozy home of our little people — Mr. and Mrs. 
Wheldon. 

It was very odd that we should be taken away 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 


9 


from home at night ; still, I had learned with strange 
unchildlike philosophy, to accept strange or unpleas- 
ant things, with silent stoicism ; beginning so young 
in life, to walk upon chalked lines, laid down with 
geometric precision. 

Of the whole strange proceeding of our going, and 
Frances being left behind, I made the following in 
ventory in my own mind, — Fact number one. Papa 
says we are to go to Mrs. Wheldon’s. 

P'act number two — we are to remain all night ; 
which is lovely, but odd. 

Fact number three— Frantztony stays at home 
because mamma wants her. 

Fact number four — quod erat demonstrandum— 
find it out, Nautz Nautz. Having eased my mind 
by swallowing this batch of facts, I asked no questions, 
and we reached Mrs. -Wheldon’s. Somehow they 
weren’t surprised to see us at such an hour. But so 
much petting and cuddling I never experienced in 
one evening. 

Doc and Mr. Wheldon played a noisy game of 
eheckers. Mrs. Wheldon rocked me, feeding me 
meanwhile with sweetmeats, and after they had palled 
somewhat, she presented me with a china dog, and 
the “ babes in the woods,” and a great lot of sea 
shells which whispered all sorts of weird and beautiful 
stories when I held them to my ear. 

And when bedtinie came, how she smothered rne 


92 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


with blankets, and came back three distinct times to 
kiss and pet me with a sort of pitying tenderness. 
Then she left the candle burning and went away, 
while I remarked with the old time discernment — 
“ Somethin’ is up, Nautz Nautz, dojit be a muff.” 

The next morning only confirmed my suspicions, 
for Mr. Wheldon insisted upon my having four times 
the amount of sausage links that were good for me, 
and made a circle of buttered muffins all the way 
around my plate. Then when ten o’clock came, and, 
the sun began to show the fog yellow instead of black. 
Doc and I were allowed to go home together. 

We discussed the point fully, as we walked along, 
hand in hand ; but Doc was ignorant too, — of that I 
was certain. 

When we reached the house and rang the bell 
vigorously, blowsy Mary from the kitchen appeared, 
opened the door cautiously, peered out, put her grimy 
fingers on her lips. Here Doc burst the door in 
making Mary stagger, and we scampered across the 
hall to the staircase ; when Mary, finding her voice, 
cried, “Master Jerome hand Dora, you’ll kill your Mar 
hif you make such an ’ubbub.” Then we stopped and 
looked at the girl ; but she seemed in earnest, so we 
clasped hands and went on tip toe up to the drawing- 
room. There sat Frantztony on the floor before the 
fire, holding a bundle ; mamma was nowhere. Frantz- 
tony looked wise, and put her finger on her lip ; so 


/ 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


93 


we asked her what she had got. Then she pulled a 
little piece of the blanket open and showed us a — baby. 

■ Blazes ! ” said Doc, with emphasis. “ Where did 
you get it, Frantztony ? ” 

“ It’s mamma’s, she says it’s our little sister.” 

I’ve got answered Doc, dolorously. 

“ Let’s see it good, Franztony,” I said. Then she 
pulled the blanket down and showed us a little cop- 
per-colored face and a tiny head covered with silky 
black hair an inch long. 

“ Doc, what do you ’spose God made her so red 
for } ’’ I asked. 

“ ’Cause she’s an Indian, I guess ! ” 

“ And will she be one when she grows big ^ ” 
’Course, and maybe scalp us and burn the house 
down.” 

“ Oh, Doc ! ” we both cried at once, and then a faint 
voice from the bedroom called and then we went 
in to mamma, and she comforted us and told us won- 
derful, imaginary things that baby would do when it 
grew big ; and installed me as nurse and asked Doc 
what it should be named, and without a moment’s 
hesitation he replied, “ Traunty Nautz,” but papa and 
mamma called her— Hortensia. 


94 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


CHAPTER XII. 

The “ Indian Baby,” as I persisted in calling her, 
proved a godsend to me, and soon came to fill the 
desert waste of my affections. Doc was^ away at the 
Institute so much of the time ; papa and mamma were 
so occupied with other matters ; Frantztony’s pursuits 
and likings were so little in unison with mine, that no 
sooner had mamma promised that the “ Indian Baby ” 
should belong to me than I turned into a motherly 
little woman immediately, determined to watch her 
growth narrowly, and speedily nip in the bud any war- 
like and Indian proclivities which might crop out. 
What then was my astonishment when I daily ob- 
served the tiny face and hands losing somewhat of 
their copper color, and that she bid fair to become a 
civilized Christian child. 

Papa seemed losing heart as to the success of his 
patent ; mamma gained health so slowly and her phy- 
sician urged a return to America so strongly, as 
the only remedy, that we all became imbued with 
the idea, and before my Baby was two months old it 
became a fixed facf that we would sail, so soon as the 
weather permitted. It was now January ; in the 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


95 


middle of February we children wefe all sent to 
Auntie Gale’s to spend the last week, and the day 
before leaving London mamma, papa and Baby came. 
Auntie had a grand, final dinner, and all the sons and 
our nearest friends were present ; and we children 
were loaded with gifts, and everybody petted and 
admired my Baby, and, finally, the cab rumbled to the 
door and Auntie wept over and hugged us all, and the 
young gentlemen smothered us with kisses and bon- 
bons, and Mr. Fred mounted the box with the driver, 
determined to see the very last of us, and away we 
rattled to the depot By the time the morning broke, 
grim and murky, we were rolling into Liverpool. 

Papa and Doc went immediately after breakfast to 
obtain passages in an out-going vessel. 

For three dreary days we waited ; no steam vessel 
was due, and we all clamored to be off. 

Therefore, a sailing vessel then lying in port, bein^ 
ready to sail for New Orleans mamma, in her weak 
state, agreed gladly to go in it, since the captain, 
upon being interviewed, seemed a most perfect gen- 
tleman. 

The determination taken, and all willing to endure 
any amount of discomfort for the sake of returning to 
grandmamma, who was counting the days until our 
arrival in Hillsboro’, — whither they had removed from 
the farm, — we sailed. - ^ 

“ Man proposes, God disposes.” 


96 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


And we, who diad thought so sooh to be treading 
the old familiar paths, were doomed to long suffering 
which required patience equal to the Prophet Job’s. 

^ The captain, a gentleman on land, proved a brute 
at sea ; abused the sailors, drank and caroused and 
refused the poor steerage passengers their allotted 
portion of fresh water, until one after another lay 
down with ship fever and scurvy, and papa and 
mamma went down into those close quarters as nurses, 
leaving Doc, Frantztony and me to be nurses for that 
angelic Baby^who developed the most delightful dis- 
position. 

One day, papa came up with such a sad face, and 
told us that the Scotchwoman’s baby had died ; and 
now she was frantic at the thought of putting the 
little waxen thing into a great sack filled with rock 
salt, and seeing it thrown to the sharks, which were 
always in our wake now. 

^How we pitied the poor emigrant going out alone 
to America, to meet her husband, who had gone be- 
fore and made a home ; and now — her baby was dead. 
We all put our heads together and wept in sympathy, 
while the brutal captain refused, with oaths, papa’s 
offer to pay for the material and time, if he would but 
allow the willing ship’s carpenter to make a rough 
coffin. 

A sack and rock salt, was good enough and all he 
had for her, he said. Then mamma looked over our 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


97 


stores ; among them she found a little trunk in which 
she had packed delicacies ; most of which had already 
found their way down parched throats. 

This trunk she emptied, laid in it a dainty pillow, 
and sent it by papa to the mother. 

She, kneeling by her dead baby, prayed God to 
spare these new friends from like sorrow ; and then 
the baby was laid within ; great lumps of rock salt 
placed around the wee form and the trunk closed and 
locked. Papa went to a kind old sailor, and begged 
that when they buried the baby at the ringing of the 
six o’clock bell, he would see that no coarse song was 
sung, no rude jest made, to tear that wounded mother’s 
heart, and the sailors who loved papa and Doc prom- 
ised heartily. 

The time came ; the sun sank like a ball of fire 
into the sea ; the bell rang, and the sharks drew closer 
astern, my eyes were riveted upon them ; my flesh 
creeping ; my heart running over with pity and 
pain. 

Gently papa carried the baby up ; mamma leading 
the Scotch mother. 

The dear, white-haired old sailor bared his lo«ks. 
Then he came forward and read the burial service, — 
“ I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord.” 

With one impulse, every sailor lifted his tarpaulin. 

“ We brought nothing into this world, and it is cer- 
tain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


98 

the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of 
the Lord.” 

The tears were running down every weatherbeaten 
cheek. 

“ Man that is born of a woman, hath but a short 
time to live.” 

Even the fiendish sneer on the captain’s face, died 
out. 

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; look- 
ing for the general Resurrection in the last day, and 
the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; at whose second coming in glorious majesty 
to judge the world, the earth and the sea, shall give 
up their dead ; and the corruptible bodies of those 
who sleep in Him shall be changed, and made like 
unto his own glorious body, according to the mighty 
working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto 
himself.” 

The poor Scotchwoman’s sobs had ceased — and 
the light of a great belief illuminated her face. Papa, 
with some strange impulse, took the key from 
mamma’s hand, unlocked the little black trunk, and 
lifted the lid ; every bronze face in turn bent over the 
beautiful, still form ; and from more than one unre- 
generate heart broke sobs of memory, for his own 
buried, little ones. 

Tenderly the Scotchwoman kissed the little white 
face ; papa slid the lock and laid the key in her palm ; 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


99 


then the sailors took it up tenderly, gently swung it 
to and fro for a moment, keeping time to the motion 
with a dirge-like moan, and the little coffin slid from 
their hands into the great deep — down, down, fathoms 
below where we rode ; amid mosses and sea shells and 
fairy forms of beauty, and the sharks dived after it 
fruitlessly. 

How long, how long moaned the suffering pas- 
sengers belo\v, as the weary days crawled on, and we 
lay upon a brazen sea : a brazen sun dropping scorch- 
ing thunberbolts of heat upon the decks. Papa 
caused an awning to be stretched, under which poor 
Frantztony, thin and wan with fever, was carried, and 
two sailors drev/ up and threw upon the awning sea 
water as fast as it dried. 

“ What is the matter } ” asked one and another. 

“ Why, is it so mercilessly hot ” 

‘‘ And the water is giving out ! ” said a third, with 
a curse upon the captain. 

Meanwhile, he revelled in his spacious cabin, with 
his boon companions, and drinking wine, knew no 
need of water. 

And now the sailors began to murmur ; bronze brows 
grew black with suppressed choler. 

There is little to be done ; we lie almost still upon 
the pulseless water ; whales play in schools at short 
distances ; and now the truth dawns, our drunken 
captain has sailed five hundred miles out of his 


lOO 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


reckoning and taken months to accomplish what should 
have been done in weeks. 

The sailors know the truth ! The sun drops like a 
fireball into the sea — the captain lies drunk in his 
cabin — the morning dawns ; there is an unusual stir 
outside; I creep up the steps leading to the deck, and 
holding to the rail, look down into the vessel : the 
mate comes out, and an angry sailor on the watch 
strikes him to the floor ; the captain follows ; and now 
every man is lashed into fury : clubs, belaying pins, 
spikes, fly in all directions : the sailors have mutinied ! 

Papa comes forth, looks wildly about, sees me 
hanging over the railing above, flings men right and 
left, leaps up the steps, catches me in his arms, and is 
down again and in the cabin before I know what is 
the matter, or why I cannot stop to see the play 
“ out.” 

Out again he goes, and by reason of his strong arms 
and his strong power over men, these untamed, savage 
natures are subdued, and they drop back like frightened 
sheep before his voice. Then he reasons with them, 
promises that their wrongs shall be redressed when 
we reach New Orleans, and tells them we are near 
the West Indies as they will see before the day is 
out. 

And by and by the men are passive in his hands, 
and each goes back to his duty. 

Then the captain blusters, puts four men in chains, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


lOI 


and threatens terrible things ; but papa tells him the 
authorities will be informed of his conduct, so soon as 
we reach harbor, and sullenly he subsides. 

Presently we drift into sight of land ; the natives 
come out to the vessel in canoes, loaded with tropic 
fruits and luscious pineapples, bananas, oranges and 
bread-fruit, bringing delight to many a fever patient. 
And now the obstinate captain tacks, and we all take 
fresh heart, knowing that we will soon surely be 
home. 

If any of my readers has had a like experience of 
three months in a sailing vessel, under most unfavor- 
able circumstances, he may be able to understand 
with what intense relish we ate our first breakfast upon 
land. Never in my life before or since, have I tasted 
such French rolls and coffee as papa had brought 
to us, as soon as we weighed anchor. Then, with the 
blessings and thanks of every steerage passenger, and 
many a hand clasp from our rough sailor friends, papa 
took Baby, one of the passengers took Frantztony, 
who could not walk, and we once more set our feet 
upon free soil and turned our faces northward. 


102 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


CHAPTER XIIL 

After the horror of that waking nightmare — ;the 
Ocean trip — my sensitive and sympathetic readers 
will readily understand to what an elysium we children 
were transported when we once more found ourselves 
upon a noble steamer, bounding through the waters 
of the Mississippi. After the isolation to which we 
had necessarily been subjected on the vessel, it was 
most delightful to have a genuine game of romps, or. 
“ hide and seek ” in the great saloon ; being bestowed ^ 
first in one state room and then another, by the delicate 
highbred lady passengers. This was going home in 
earnest, the air was buoyant and transparent, and 
already Frantztony began to walk a little- with the aid 
of papa ; whilst my dormant wings took fresh hope 
and budded. I felt as though I had been dead, and 
only just resurrected, so intense was the life which 
thrilled through my blood. And, by and by, we passed 
acres of orange groves, and the kindly captain, beset 
by and entreated of all those “ fair women,” actually 
ran ashore, and let off a gang of gentlemen who came 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


103 


back loaded with ripe fruit and knots of the fragrant 
blossoms in their buttonholes. The second day, when 
we were sailing along at great speed, all counting the 
hours it would yet take to reach the “ Queen City,” 
turning a bend in the river, we came in sight of 
another gallant boat steaming up stream. 

Some one urged a trial of speed between the two ; 
the captain, nothing loth, and proud of his vessel, 
gave orders : all crowded to the deck ; gentlemen drew 
forth their watches to note the time, and the ladies 
waved their handkerchiefs defiantly to those on our 
competitor s deck. The race is a' short one, — fifteen 
minutes, and we surge with a rush past “ The New 
Orleans ” so close that we graze, with a sickening 
sound. A gentleman of handsome and elegant appear- 
ance, sits with his chair tipped back, watch in hand, 
absorbed in our progress — when the final moment 
comes, in which we all but collide ; the rebound sends 
him headlong over the rail, and before the eyes of all 
he falls between the steamers, breaking his neck in- 
stantly in the descent. 

What a sickening end to fifteen minutes’ sport ; 
with that dead man upon board to cast a gloom upon 
the spirits of every passenger, we all hail with reliefi 
the first indications of nearing the “ Queen City.” 

Boarding the train at once, we were whirled away 
at lightning speed, all absorbed in the thought of 
taking grandmamma by surprise. Four hours later 


104 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL F. 


we roll into the depot of Hillsboro’, and making a rush 
for the first omnibus visible, all give orders at once 
to the bewildered driver. 

While that jehu hustles in another trio of passen- 
gers, we children become conscious of the inquisitive 
gaze of a handsome mulatto man who stands on the 
platform examining our luggage, and finally, satisfied 
upon some point, lifts his hat to us and starts up 
street on a run. 

“ Papa,’* says Doc, “ do they have custom houses in 
America, and do our trunks have to be overhauled } ” 

“No!” answered papa. 

“ Well, I can’t make out what that man running up 
the street meant by turning over our trunks.” 

“ Don’t bother Doc,” I say, “ we are going to sur- 
prise grandmamma.” 

And presently, we pull up before a great brick 
house, and the veritable mulato, with the additional 
ornament of a white linen apron, appears ; smiling and 
talking over his shoulder to some one running down 
the stairs, — 

“ Right this way, Mr. Ulric, here they are ; I 
tole you our folks had come ; I knowed ’em the first 
blessed minnit I sot eyes on ’em.” 

And Uncle Ulric’ s bushy head appeared, and such 
laughing and crying, and talking as followed, would 
have put Babal to shame j whilst Abgar, our mulatto 
friend, who on his own account had played the part 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL Y. 


105 

of advance courier, struck attitudes and danced on 
the sidewalk with the baby in his arms. 

Then grandmamma’s lovely old face appeared, and 
Aunt Dora, trim, petite, and elegant as ever ; and we 
were carried to the sitting-room, where we all sat 
down in a group and cried for joy. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen, dinner waits,” says Abgar, 
throwing open the door with a flourish and bow. 

“ Dinner ! ” cry I with contempt, “ who wants din- 
ner on such a day } I want nothing in the world but 
my dear old grandmother,” and the dear body holds 
me close, then at arms’ length, takes off my funny 
little “ cottage bonnet,” misses the white curls, and 
falls to sobbing over me. 

Poor Aunt Dora and Abgar, who for weeks past, 
had exerted all their skill in devising toothsome din- 
ners for the travellers they had expected so long ; 
found at last, when they arrived, that they might have 
filled us with husks, and we would have been none the 
wiser, from very excess and unconsciousness of our 
joy. 

The news of our return ran over the town in a 
trice ; old friends came in at all hours, and we children 
were borrowed to show those at home, or engage- 
ments made to go with them to church, for the sake — 
we fear — of exhibiting our odd little English manners 
and costumes. 

By and by it grew wearisome to me in particular, 


io6 THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 

to be turned about, examined and questioned, in order 
to see whether we had brought home with us the 
English H.” I, therefore, demanded to be taken 
out of cottage bonnets, low-necked and short-sleeved 
frocks and slippers, and put into genuine American 
clothes, at once, which my mild-eyed mother imme- 
diately obeyed ; and ceasing to be a wonder, with the 
change of dress, I went over to the Boys and was the 
happy Nautz Nautz of the olden time. 

Doc entered Hillsboro’ college, and having success- 
fully passed the usual tests, to which all new-comers 
were subjected — finding that he had a little over the 
requisite amount of ‘‘ pluck,” he was chosen leader at 
once, and soon proved himself invaluable in the brew- 
ing and perpetrating of innocent mischief. 

Frantztony being recovered, we were sent to dis- 
tinguish ourselves at a private school. 

It was jolly fun for me, because Miss Darker had a 
piano in her beautiful parlor back of the schoolroom ; 
and discovering my child passion for music, she soon 
taught me to dance to her waltzes and schottisches, 
creating thereby a new source of amusement for her 
own lonely life. Miss Darker was very particular 
about the manfters of her young ladies ; I can remem- 
ber how she shuddered, when she happened to see one 
of our number put her pen in her mouth ; a mouse 
was immediately procured, and its blood dropped into 
the ink, and that bad habit was cured. 


THE HA UTZ FA MIT. Y. 1 07 

Chewing gum she positively forbade, on pain of 
punishment. 

Now chewing gum — particularly tolu — was my 
delight ; therefore, I immediately devised a way of 
steering clear of Miss Larker’s threat. 

We had parties of a Saturday, at which we did 
nothing but chew, — under the great pear tree in Kitty 
Warren’s front yard ; having a picket at the gate, 
whose duty it was to announce 'when Miss Larker 
should step forth to take her afternoon promenade ; at 
the precise moment, the watchful picket gave the 
signal of the enemy’s approach ^ every piece of tolu 
disappeared, and we were all engaged in plaiting 
“crackers” for the Boys, who had started a whip 
establishment and were coining money. • 

Miss Larker always stopped at the gate, and com- 
mended us for being such lady-like, industrious girls ; 
whilst we sniffed her “ musky ” presence and declared 
she looked “ perfectly lovely,” dropping our faces in 
each other’s laps — young imps that we were — to keep 
from shouting until her stately form turned the corner 
and the tolu was brought forth again. I doubt not 
the chewing parties might have gone on until some 
other innocent mischief offered itself, but there proved 
to be a Judas among my disciples, and one Monday 
morning we were somewhat surprised to find that 
Miss Larker had knowledge of the whole affair, but 
finding all the big girls in the school belong to the 


I o8 FAMIL y. 

toll! party, she passed the matter over, by declaring 
she had no jurisdiction over our manners of a Satur- 
day. Meanwhile, I discovered the traitor. One night 
Doc came home sick, deathly sick. 

“ What can be the matter, Doc ” asked mamma ; 
but Doc preserved silence profound. 

Then grandma fixed a dose of peppermint to 
“ settle his stomach.” At the smell of it Doc turned 
livid, and gave up his supper. 

“ Doc,” said I, when the horrible nausea was at its 
height, “ where did you get that cigar ? ” 

“ That’s it, you have been smoking, young man ! ” 
said mamma. 

“Yes,” groaned Doc. 

“ Where did you get it ” I repeated. 

“ Binnegarand nuppeneggs,” — Vinegar and nutmegs 
— Doc answered. 

“ Ha ! ha ! ‘ Vinegar and Nutmegs ’ sold it to you, 
did she ? She won’t stand behind her father’s counter 
and do that again, I owe her one. She told about the 
toll! parties and — now I’ll maul her,” I whispered in 
Doc’s ear. And I did ; my determination not to become 
a “ muff ” had revived. 

We had now been home almost a year, during 
which time we had managed between us to keep 
grandmamma’s household from stagnation. 

My baby — Traunty Nautz — as Doc still called her, 
had grown to be a strange, dreamy child, “ never more 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL Y. 


109 

than half born into the world,” Aunt Dora said, and I 
believed her, and tried to keep myself good on that 
baby’s account, because she seemed to recognize in 
me her first friend, and take me as a whole, upon the 
profoundest trust. 

Papa had gone back to Woodstock, where, having 
re-established his business, the household Lares and 
Penates were again set up, with the assistance of dear 
old Aunt Peggy, who came at mamma’s call, from 
visiting her mythical daughter ” in the Land of 
Nowhere ” ; and once more we found ourselves in the 
house of lang syne. 




no 


THE NA UTZ TAMIL Y. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

One of the most tenacious memories of my child- 
hood, is the dislike, amounting to fear, which I had of 
going to church. 

I account for it in this way. My parents were 
Presbyterians, and belonged to the largest and richest 
church in Woodstock. 

The family pew was in the “ Amen corner ; ” the 
end of it stopped short about two and a half feet from 
the wall, and just here ran down a steep and narrow 
staircase. I remember the first time I was ever taken 
into that pew. Doc and myself were sent in first ; 
mamma and papa followed. 

The building was so vast and grand to my baby 
eyes ; the ceiling seemed to be very near the clouds, 
which floated past and almost in, at the windows ; the 
pulpit with its scarlet, satin damask desk and chairs, 
so gorgeous ; every crystal pendant, that hung from 
the grand central chandelier, was to me a translucent 
star dropped from out the heavens ; the Venetian 
blinds hung at the windows created such a sense of 
wonderment, as to how they ever coul4 have been 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


lit 


made so large ; the carpet with its lovely white water 
lilies trailed amongst the shadowy leaves, so beautiful ; 
and grander than all, the gallery, which seemed to 
hang without visible support ’twixt ceil and floor, 
where the great organ, with its glittering gilt pipes 
and glorious volume of sound took my child’s heart 
up and bore me straight into the presence of the 
heavenly host ; all caught and held my wondering 
gaze, so that the awful staircase was utterly forgotten. 
But when the voluntary was over, the first hymn sung 
and all stood up for prayer, and being pressed by Doc, 
close to the partition, I looked over and saw the stairs, 
which seemed to go down into the dark without an 
object or outlet, I leaned over and whispered to him, — 
“ Doc, does you know where these stairs go ? ” 
Yes.” 

“ Where } 

“ Don’t like to tell.” Doc answered, 

“ Please do, Docie ! ” 

You won’t tell ? ” 

“ No ! ” 

“ They go down into the Bad Place.” I drew back 
with a gasp and a shudder, but yet I felt an irresisti- 
ble desire to look again, and be sure there was no 
door, so holding on to Doc’s hand I leaned over and 
craned my neck to its uttermost No end— no door 
and no carpet, it all looked suspicious ; I gave in, and 
accepted Doc’s answer as the truth, From that hour, 


II2 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


not even Gabriel, unless he had blown sweet sounds 
upon his trumpet, could have made me forget that 
awful descent in hell ; and to this day, I never come 
upon this couplet in the .^neid — 

“ Facilis descensus Avemi : 
Noctes atque dies, patet atri janua Ditis 
Sed revocare gradura, superasque evadere ad aurasj 
Hoc opus, hie labor est, — ” 

But that my thoughts fly back to those awful Sab- 
baths of torture, when I sat shrinking at every stir of 
the maple branches against the window frames, ex- 
pecting every moment, to see a terrible horned 
creature, with forked tail, such as the Devil was por- 
trayed in mamma’s great Bible, come stalking up 
those stairs in search of prey ; and I, being the first 
thing visible, and so small a fry at that, would needs 
be the first to disappear across the partition. 

Doc never knew the mischief he had wrought, nor 
how my pride overbalanced my fear, and forced me, 
with all my shrinking sensitive nature, to endure the 
torture rather than tell my terror ; nor yet how I sat 
through all the sermon, erudite beyond my child’s 
understanding, and repeated the Lord’s prayer, and 
commandments over and over ; counted the organ 
pipes and the window panes ; and, as I grew old 
enough, even made an estimate of the cost of the lat- 
ter, at fifty cents a pane, that I might forget that 
“ descensus Averni,” up which a hot wind always 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


came in summer and a cold one in winter. Once, I 
remember timddly giving to papa that “ cold wind,” 
as a reason for not wanting to go to church : he there- 
upon caused some pieces of heavy long-haired buffalo 
hide to be laid on the floor for my small feet to rest 
upon, but I saw no difference and felt no more like 
going. 

Once, one of the deacons, a saintly man, of whom 
we children all stood in awe, came out of his pew, 
walked solemnly up the aisle, ascended the pulpit 
steps, and spoke in low whispers to the minister, 
then came down, turned the corner and — yes, actually 
to my wide-eyed horror, went down those terrible 
stairs. This was a new theme of study for me, but 
henceforth, the Deacon who entered the domains 
and held conference with the Prince of Darkness, 
was as awful to me as the Prince himself. 

After this second discovery, there remained but 
one thing, which forced me to endure the pangs of 
shivering fear that clutched my heart, every time I 
walked with assumed bravery, into the furthest cor- 
ner of that pew, viz. a voice of such infinite reach 
and sweetness, that the insttint it broke the air into 
threads of ecstatic harmony, I was lapped into oblivion 
of all things below, and could do nothing but follow 
with a sensitive child’s quick sympathy, until the 
voice clothed itself in the form of an angel, and 
floated up to the gates of pearl. But then I fell to 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


114 

wondering whether God could refuse anything that 
voice could ask of him. But now and then, the body 
to which this beautiful voice belonged was absent, 
and then came my hour of torment, for nothing potent 
enough remained, to hold my thoughts from the 
descent into hell. 

If I was quiet in church, it was from fear, not 
from any sense of decorum or religion ; one quick 
glance at the gallery told me whether the arms of 
God would be reached down to hold me in safety or 
not, during the services. My young Frenchman gone 
— gone everything — but the Prince of Darkness, who 
stood below ready to clutch me, if I stirred. 

It was years, after all this had passed away, ere I 
came face to face with the owner of that voice ; for 
some strange, prophetic feeling made me, as a child, 
always hold furthest from me the things I loved the 
bestr ; in the dread that they could not bear my keen 
scrutiny and would discover some blur or blot, which 
would disfigure them forever. Who can tell what 
untold torments I thus prepared for myself, hugging 
to my heart many a form of imaginary beauty which 
my waking vision; in after years, discovered as the 
corpse it was ; and yet I would not yield to-day a jot 
of all the beauteous visions of childhood. What 
adult, man or woman, could have the heart to destroy 
the strange and weird beliefs, which every little child 
of his acquaintance must have Sometimes a quaint 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


IIS 

belief will be rife among a whole family of little folks, 
as witness the following : — ^ 

One night, when Doc, Frantztony and myself were 
gathered in a bunch, on the rug at the front door, 
giving, in awestruck whispers, our ideas of the 
heavenly bodies to one another, I leaned close to them 
and said, — “ Boys,” — I always addressed the crowd 
as “ Boys,” — if there chanced to be a single one of 
the masculine gender present, — 

“ Boys, you remember auntie told us, that there is 
one angel up there,” — pointing to the clouds, — “ who 
writes down everything we do — ” 

“ The Recording Angel,” said Frantztony, with 
religiously tenacious memory. 

“ Yes ; writes down everything we do ; the good 
things on one page and the bad on the other — now 
where do you ’spose he gets his pen and ink } ” 

“ I know all about the pen,” said Doc. 

“Tell it.” 

“ He pulls a feather out of his wing and whittles it, 
like papa does,” 

“ Oh ! ” 

“ And / know where he gets the ink,” said Frantz- 
tony. 

“ Where .? ” 

“ It’s blood.” 

This answer delighted Doc ; he clapped her on the 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


116 

shoulder, and cried with enthusiastic praise in his 
tone, — “ Frantztony you’re a brick ! ” 

But, somehow — although it never entered my head 
to doubt her word — I did not relish the idea, very 
much, fearing that by the time / got to heaven, there 
being so many very good things and so many very 
bad things to record, all the angels would be drained 
dry of blood, and I would be called upon to furnish 
“ ink,” for the rest of time. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


ll^ 


CHAPTER XV. 

‘‘ Dido et dux/’ remarked Doc, solemnly, as he 
retained his footing in the swing with the skill of an 
athlete, holding to the rope with one hand, and con- 
veying wild grapes to his mouth with the other. 

** Dido et dux; speak up, Traunty Nautz ; what kind 
of ducks did Dido eat ? ” 

Traunty’s great brown eyes opened wider — she 
leaned over and whispered in my ear, — 

What kind, I— I?” 

“ No whispering in classes, next — Dido et dux ! — ’’ 

Before I could open my mouth, Frantztony came to 
the door, with a face white as chalk, and said, — 

“Doc, papa said you shouldn’t swing while they 
were at church ; come in, all of you, and let’s play 
Sunday-school.” 

“Not for you, or ^ any other man’ — I say Frantz- 
tony you’ve been eating paw-paws, and mamma said 
^you shouldn’t, and now you’ll catch it.” 

Sure enough, she did catch it, for inside five 
minutes, she was the sickest girl I ever remember 
seeing, Doc, in a spasm of laughter at the absurdity 
and good fortune of catching Frantztony in any dis- 


1 1 8 the na utz fa mil k 

obedience, lifted himself by the swing rope, and went 
to turn a summersault, as he had often done success- 
fully, when one hand slipped, he lost his hold, and 
down he came to the ground, breaking his arm at 
the elbow. 

“ Traunty Nautz ; don’t be a muff,” I commanded, 
as I bent over Doc in a dead faint : and with a back- 
ward glance saw that Frantztony and the surreptitious 
paw-paw’s were still fighting it out, and there were 
small hopes of help from that quarter, during the 
pending state of affairs. 

Sunday morning, and the house empty ; papa and 
mamma at church. Aunt Peggy away on a visit, — ran 
my thoughts. 

What’ll we do, I — I ? ” 

My brave Baby’s sweet voice recalled my scattered 
senses, — 

Tom’s in a shop, I — I ! ” 

“ Bless the child, bring him quick ! ” and away the 
little feet patter taking their dainty way through the 
leather chips of the shop, toiling up the steps, and 
pounding on the greasy door, which hid aspiring Tom, 
bending over his latin books, from the eyes of a righ- 
teous world. 

A moment, and wise, ungraceful Tom comes, 
lumbering across the yard, dragged by the hand. 

Together we carry poor Doc in and lay hitti upon 
rqanim^’s bed, Tom runs for the doctor^ 


THE NAUTZ TAMIL K 


1 19 

Traunty and Frantztony sit by the bed, whilst I 
catch up my sun-bonnet and bound down the street 
to the church, five blocks away. 

I will never forget that experience ; as I sped over 
the flagged pavement, houses, stores and court-house, 
seemed to fly backward with invisible wings ; at the 
hotel, some one tried to stop me, but I wrenched away 
and was gone before he recovered his equilibrium ; 
the burly druggist in his doorway cried, “ What’s the 
matter, Theodora ? ” 

Doc’s hurt ! ” I pant as I bound up the great 
stone steps, three at a time and stand inside the 
vestibule palpitating — “ What shall I do now ? I ask 
myself — then, the thrill of that sweet tenor breaks 
the sabbath stillness, and I almost forget that Doc is 
hurt, as the rich tones bear me up on angel wings. 

Just then, a gentleman came up the steps, he 
glanced at me anxiously and finally asked, — 

What do you want, little girl ? ” 

“ I am Miss Theodora De Graff, sir,” I answered, 
icily. 

And what does Miss Theodora De Graff want ? ” 

“ She wants you to go into the church, and ask for 
Mr. and Mrs. De Graff ! ” 

“ But for what ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” with a suppressed whistle. — 

‘*To come home, of course ! ” disdainfully. 

♦'But what the matter ■ ” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


120 

I never tell family affairs : they are needed.” 

By the gods, this is a proud little minx.” 

Don’t swear in the church, sir; are you going.?” 
I asked, with my hand on the knob of the green baize 
door. Then he threw it off and entered : I waited 
just long enough to hear him say, — 

“ Mr. and Mrs. De Graff are wanted at home,” — 
and down the steps I flew — and was quietly doing the 
bidding of the old physician, by the time papa and 
mamma arrived. 

Dear, dear,” said mamma dolorously, “ and Aunt 
Peggy is away ; something always happens when she 
is gone.” 

“ How did this come about .? ” asked papa. 

“ Dido et dux,” — answered Traunty Nautz gravely. 

The old physician stopped in his work upon the 
broken arm, to look at Traunty over his glasses, and 
even Doc smiled at his apt pupil, despite his pain. 

“ Dido et dux,” she repeated, and then subsided 
into quiet and deeper gravity : and no further ques- 
tions were asked until the arm was set, and Doc lay 
in comparative ease upon the parlor sofa. 

I have often thought, that a bad hurt is more stoi- 
cally borne, when it is the direct outcome of disobe- 
dience. Certainly, nervous, sensitive Doc bore his 
hurt with greater equanimity than he would, had it 
not come about in this way, because he felt it a just 
punishment. As for me, and Traunty, we sometimes 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


12 1 

felt that we had been accomplices and coadjutors in 
Doc’s disobedience, and made amends by doing all in 
our power to facilitate his recovery. Notwithstanding 
Doc was a Sophomore at the academy, and began to 
spout Latin upon every occasion, he still retained his 
boy love for Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian 
Nights, and it became my daily practice to read these 
books to him and Traunty ; even Frantztony — when 
not otherwise occupied — would stay to listen. My 
friend, Marmaduke Hepborn, gave me the confidential 
information, through the tanyard fence, when he 
handed me the latter book, that he would give me 
“ most anything he had, but his Arabian Nights and 
his pop-gun,” — with which he shot pigeons. I having 
secured the book, began at once to resolve the pro- 
priety of rewarding such unprecedented kindness in 
some manner. The feeling of indebtedness to Mar- 
maduke grew with the reading of each marvellous 
tale, and finally I hit upon the plan of writing him a 
letter of thanks, as a token of my appreciation. 

Frautztony and I were at the wood-pile one day ; 
she was singing with unction that delightful old Pres- 
byterian hymn, beginning, — 

“ And are we wretches yet alive ? 

And do we yet rebel ? 

’Tis boundless — ’tis amazing love 
That bears us up from hell ! 

“ The burden of our weighty guUt 


tii2 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


Would sink us down to flames ; 

And threatening vengeance rolls above, 

To crush our feeble frames.” 

When, in an ill-fated moment I said, — “ Frantztony 
don’t you think Marmaduke was very kind to lend me 
his Arabian Nights, to read to Doc ? ” 

** 1 don’t care for such books.” 

“Now, Frantztony Nautz, didn’t I catch you listen- 
ing when I read Aladdin ? ” 

“ Well, what if you did ? I don’t think it was much 
for ’Duke to lend you that; he shoots our pigeons, and 
I don’t like him,” 

I answered emphatically, “and I mean to 
write him a letter.” 

Frantztony pushed her sun-bonnet back, the better 
to see if I meant it ; then suddenly dropped her pan, 
into which she was picking chips for Miranda, and 
shot into the house. 

Information of the brewing mischief reaching 
mamma’s ears by this direct route, the result can be 
imagined better than portrayed by my pen : it is un- 
necessary to add, the letter was never written, but 
what small persecutions the informant received at the 
hands of Doc and myself are past telling. 

At this late day, I am inclined to think, that when 
she sometimes said “ she wished she was dead,” she 
really meant it, being, as she was, bedevilled by two 
imps, for, at the least count, fifteen hours out of the 
twenty-four. 


7'HE NA UTZ FA MIL K 


123 


Doc recovering sufficiently to return to the Acad- 
emy, the reading and nutting club was broken up, and 
mamma and Aunt Peggy enjoyed comparative quiet. 
But somewhere about this time a new source of amuse 
ment broke out, and rilled into our daily lives. 

My father was a remarkably hospitable man, giving 
invitations and extending courtesies with a godlike 
largesse and gratuity. Hence it was, the house was 
rarely free of visitors ; and, if there was any fun to be 
gleaned out of them. Doc and Nautz Nautz, were the 
ones to obtain it. There came a day when Miss 
Clementina Patric — the daughter of an up-country 
tanner, with whom my father had dealings. — with a 
laudible desire of doing credit to her autocratic name 
and money, developed a rapid taste for music, dancing 
flirting, and other womanly accomplishments needful 
to a young lady of fashion and means ; and her fond 
papa immediately sought his city friend, and begged 
for Miss Patric a home in the bosom of his family, 
during the progress of the^veneering process. 

The plan being laid before my mother, what could 
the poor woman do but acquiesce 1 

It therefore came to pass, that on a certain drizzly 
day the expected guest arrived, well scanned from 
back of the Venetian blinds, by Doc and Nautz Nautz. 
I saw nothing in particular, but a girl as broad at the 
hips as at the shoulders, freckled and watery-eyed. 
Doc, with the superior penetration of age and wis- 


24 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


dom, seemed to swallow her appearance with a gulp 
expressive of delight ; put his two hands on the back 
of mamma’s pet, gothic-backed, embroidered chair, 
took a “leap-frog” over it, and finished, by standing 
head down, feet up, upon a hassock. 

This being a signal of “ fun ahead,” I fell into line 
at once, and promised to follow wherever he led, so 
that we escaped punishment. 

He made advances, the first evening after this 
fashion. 

Sidling demurely up to the end of the sofa where 
she sat, with her finger between the leaves of a book 
of sentimental poems, he caught my. eye, pointed 
significantly to her hair which hung on her shoulders, 
only kept from falling down her back by one of those 
abominable fish nets that woman wore at that time, 
and remarked in a seductive voice, — 

“ Now, Miss Patric, that is what I call beau-ti-ful : 
yes, bea-u-ti-ful.” 

“ What is beautiful .? ” a^ked Miss Patric, taking her 
eyes off the fire. 

“ Now some., wouldn’t call it so, because, you see, 
our girls wear rats and mice and cushions a;jd such 
things ; but I do. Yes ma’am I do ! ” 

“ Do what.?” 

Call if beautiful : I mean your hair!” 

The girl blushed, and asked, hastily, how the city 
girls wore their hair. 


7'HE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


125 


And Dock told her in this way : “ You see, they part 
it, fore and aft ; and then part it fore again ; and roll 
a rat in the top hair and twist a mouse in the lower 
hair, and screw both ends together, and fasten 
them on to little or nothing, with hair pins ; and 
then they stuff the back with kid-gloves and pin- 
cushions, and pin on a ^ waterfall ’ and twist a braid 
around that, and make “ beau catches,” down the 
front ; and then they think they look pretty, but 1 
don’t agree with them ; I like simplicity.” 

And just here, he covertly placed his thumb upon 
his nose and wiggled his fingers expressively, until I 
was near exploding and discovering the whole plot. 

However, though Miss Patric looked confused at this 
explanation, she showed no signs of being aware that 
she was a mark for Doc’s overflowing bump of fun : 
so far from it, indeed, that she must have made up 
her mind on the spot to consult this good-natured 
boy as to certain changes necessary to her city life 
at the seminary ; for the very next day, I came upon 
them both in the hall, Dock exhibiting with some de- 
gree of pride, my new kid boots, with killing French 
heel, the latest and most fashionable thing out, — and 
Miss Patric smiled and thanked him sweetly when 
he handed her our bootmaker’s card. 

I shook my finger at him, but he whirled-me about, 
put his hand over my mouth, and dragged me out of 
the hall, when he remarked, — 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


1 26 

‘‘ Nautz Nautz, this is the j oiliest thing we ever 
had, and will yield us a hundred per cent, if you don’t 
go and peach : — she has a lover, she told me all about 
it, and he’s coming to see her next week, and we’ll 
have a jolly time ; and I have to work it out, and 
make arrangements.” 

Make arrangements for what ? ” 

‘^For her lover’s coming ! ” 

“ Now, Doc, you’ll get into trouble, and I’ll go over 
to the enemy.” 

“Nautz^Nautz” — beseechingly. 

“ Well, then, keep within bounds.” 

“ All right.” But Doc kept within bounds by con- 
cealing himself back of the parlor sofa, and as the 
hours crept on, and Miss Patric’s lover still continued 
to utter sentimental twaddle. Doc’s cramped position 
became torture, sentiment palled, and taking a sudden 
resolve, he leaped over the sofa and darted out of the 
room, before either had recovered from the fright, or 
could think of a word to say. 

How Doc ever made it up with Miss Patric, I 
never knew but they were ever after on the most 
amicable terms and Doc had gone over to the 
enemy. 


THE NAUTZ FA.l’ILV. 


12 ) 


CHAPTER XVI. 

And now a strange thing came to pass, which 
somewhat staggered one of the theories, which had 
endured and thriven so long. One noon, when w’e 
came home from school. Aunt Peggy met us at the 
door, with her chubby finger upon her lips, command- 
ing silence. 

Demanding a cause for such restriction, she led 
us into the bedroom and exhibited — The New Baby. 

I had absolutely nothing to say. Traunty had 
come at night, let down in a basket, according to the 
regulations laid down in my theory — but this baby 
had come in broad daylight, and I knew God and 
the angels would never tlo such a thing as that. 

Taken so thoroughly by surprise, I asked Aunt 
Peggy where they got her, and she said, that when 
Miranda went to cut a cabbage for dinner, she found 
the baby. This information I retailed to Doc, and 
we both agreed that when we got to Grandmamma’s 
for vacation we would thoroughly examine the in- 
terior of every individual cabbage-head in her garden. 
Meanwhile, Doc having taken in the situation at 
once, remarked to Traunty, who stood staring with 


128 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


great eyes — “ Now then Traunty Nautz, what will 
jyoti do ? I guess the wind’s taken out of your sails ! *’ 

Seeing the red lips tremble, I put my arm about 
the child and reassured her thus, — “ Never you listen 
to Doc, Traunty , we will just have the jolliest times 
you ever heard of, with this New Baby : she shall be 
our live doll, and well take her to lots of places, and do 
lots of things with her.” 

And we did. One of the first things of any 
special mention, which I remember our doing, was 
this. The New Baby was four months old ; it was 
Saturday afternoon ; mamma and Frantztony had 
gone to “preparatory meeting.” I eschewed pre- 
paratory meetings, not being a member : besides 
which they were always connected, in my mind, with 
being — “ Plunged in a gulf of dark despair ” which I 
was never able to contemplate with equanimity. 

Therefore I remained with Traunty. Aunt Peggy 
was sorting out her pockets, and asked me to take 
care of the New Baby. 

We walked about in the parlor for a little while, 
ground the music-box until tired, and when finding 
the New Baby to be a very angel of decorum and 
goodness, ventured out under the great apple-tree. 

Presently I was struck by a bright idea, 

“Traunty,” said I, “hold baby and I’ll build a 
house up in the tree, just like the Swiss Family Rob- 
inson’s, and we’ll take the baby up there.” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


29 


So Traunty sat down on the grass and took her in 
her arms. I procured half a dozen short boards and 
a ladder which Doc had made to serve some present 
purpose, out of two clothes props and some slats ; as- 
cended the ladder, drew up my planks, and soon had 
a respectable floor arranged across two limbs. 

Then I held the baby and the ladder, and sent 
Traunty up with her picture book, following with the 
New Baby. 

Then to make the whole affair more like the Rob- 
inson family, I gave the ladder a push, and sent it 
headlong into the grass. 

We were having the most innocently delightful 
time, when Aunt Peggy appeared, evidently in a 
fright. 

She waddled hither and yonder, put her glasses on, 
then lifted them up and looked .under them ; we 
watched her complacently — finally she called : “ Miss 
The’dora, where are you ” 

“Here!” we both answered; she stood in the 
middle of the yard, and looked into the clouds. 

“ Heaven preserve.” 

“■ And pickle us } I prompted. 

“ Heaven preserve and pickle us, where has that 
chile gone and taken that New Baby } ” 

“ Here I ” we both repeated. 

Then she saw us : — 

“My stars — ” 


1.30 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“ And garters,” I prompted. 

“ My stars and garters, how did you ever get up 
there, and what will your mother say ” 

“ We flew up ; and she won’t know it.” 

“ How did you get the Baby up ? ” 

“ Put a rope round her neck, and pulled her up.” 

“ Bless me, that chile zs possessed.” 

“ I say. Aunt Peggy, don’t come too close ; for 
this is where the witches meet, and if you get inside 
the ring, you ll never forget it, that’s all.” 

Aunt Peggy got further out, with alacrity, but in 
her haste stumbled over the end of the ladder, and 
went headlong into the grass ; at which, Traunty 
Nautz, who was gravely spelling out “Jack and the 
bean stalk,” looked down, and remarked, — 

“ Dido et dux.” 

“Bless me,” cried poor Aunt Peggy, adjusting her 
cap and glasses ; “bless me, that child’s bewitched 
too.” 

“ Now, then. Aunt Peggy, stand from under. I’m 
going to throw the New Baby down, and you might 
get hurt.” 

Aunt Peggy screamed hysterically. 

“ Well, then, to spare your feelings I guess I’ll come 
down by the ladder, if you think you can put it up : 
but don t get too close, or you’ll get inside the ring.” 

Poor Aunt Peggy, with much puffing, finally placed 
the ladder to my satisfaction. 


I 

THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


131 

‘‘ Now, then, come up and get the Baby.” 

“ Stars alive, you don’t, think I could come up this 
old thing without breaking my bones } ” 

“ Now that I come to think of it, I don’t believe 
that ladder ever was created to bear one hundred and 
seventy pounds avoirdupois — so if you just keep your 
distance and hold it fast. I’ll bring her myself.” 

Aunt Peggy planted her feet far out, and held it 
with a vim. 

I descended successfully, laid the Baby on the grass 
and returned for Traunty ; then I gave the Baby to 
my nurse, caught up a switch, drew a rapid circle 
about her and said — “ Now then. Aunt Peggy Daw- 
son, you’re inside the circle, and if you tell this to 
mamma, when she comes from preparatory meeting. 
I’ll see ^11 the witches of my acquaintance and you 
shall be, — 

‘ Plunged in a gulf of dark despair,’ 

before night.” 

“ Dido et dux,” — added Traunty Nautz, with so- 
lemnity. 

Then we walked away, leaving poor Aunt Peggy 
rooted to the ground. Years filled with sunshine and 
cloud had rolled over our heads, before this escapade 
leaked out. 

Standing with wearied heart and waiting soul in 
the Present, and looking back into the Past, upon the 
other self, which personated me in those days, I find 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


132 

it hard to create a unit from the two individualities, 
and am sometimes struck with astonishment, that I 
ever reached “ years of discretion ’’ at all. To day, I 
cannot wonder that mamma and Aunt Peggy hailed 
with delight the nearing of vacation, and sewed night 
and day in order that we should be ready — by the 
coming of that — to migrate to grandmamma’s. 

To the blessed memory of my grandmother, I give 
the deepest and purest love of my life ; I never knew 
her to speak sternly to us, and she never wearied of 
us, showing always the same placid patience and 
sweetness, no matter what capers we cut. 

They had again removed to a farm, nine miles from 
Hillsboro,’ and the range we had of miles of beauteous 
fields and woods, was enough to woo older and wiser 
heads than ours. 

For some reason, I was detained after Doc and 
Frantztony had gone upon their vacation visit ; but to 
make up for this disappointment, mamma promised 
to let me travel thither alone. 

Was there ever anything so perfectly grand } The 
railroad ran within half a mile of grandmamma’s farm, 
and Uncle Ulric was to meet me at the station. 

The looked-for day arrived. Mamma, in her doubt 
and solicitude as to whether she was doing a wise 
thing in allowing me to travel alone, actually let me 
persuade her, that it was the proper thing for me to 
wear my brand-new chipbonnet, which was trimmed 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


^33 


with blue ribbons and forget-me-nots, and had come 
among the show bonnets from New York. 

I wanted to look stunning, and make Frantztony — 
who had travelled in her school hat, — jealous. I suc- 
ceeded in making myself ridiculous, instead. 

The great omnibus rattled to the door ; papa and 
I got in, whilst Aunt Peggy handed me my luggage 
and I counted on my fingers according to mamma’s 
instructions, — 

“ Big box, little satchel, bandbox and parasol,” — 
arriving at the depot, papa found a vacant seat in the 
cars, piled up my things in the corner, and asked for 
my purse, which he proceeded to replenish ; then he 
left me, and presently brought back with him the 
conductor, whom I treated icily, having no use in the 
world for him, unless it was to take care of feeble old 
men and inefficient women ; I was capable of looking 
after myself. 

The bell rang, while papa was still admonishing 
me — “ Not to lose my ticket, to be sure and get out 
at the right place, not to put my head out of the win- 
dow, or forget any of my things, or — 

But the cars showing a disposition to leave with- 
out waiting for him to get off, he left the rest unsaid, 
kissed me hastily, and sprang off the moving train. 

Presently one of the Professors from the Academy 
came up the aisle, nodded, turned over the vacant 
seat in front, and sat down facing me. I had no 


134 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


doubt whatever, that the Professor was an excellent 
instructor, and a good man in his place ; but I did 
not relish being catechized as to my attainments ; 
and made my answers as concise as good breeding 
would allow ; besides, an hour wasn’t half long enough 
for me to take in and digest all the June glories, past 
which we flew. 

Finally, seeing I had no need for him, the Profes- 
sor became absorbed in his paper ; but that was the 
most delusive train humanity ever boarded. 

Judging from the manner in which we rushed off 
at starting, one got the impression that he would be 
landed in the middle of somewhere in no time ; but 
no sooner had we gone a few miles, and got beyond 
eyesight and spy glasses, than we crawled along 
abominably. 

“ This,” said the Professor interrupting my uneasy 
look, “ is the blackberry train ! ” 

“ Why do they call it that ? ” 

‘‘ Well, because they make it a point to go slow 
enough, to allow such passengers as are ‘so dis- 
poged,’ to gather blackberries.” 

“ At my grandmother’s, blackberries do not get 
ripe until July.” 

“ Don’t they .? ” questioned the Professor, with a 
facetious smile. 

“Well now, perhaps I am mistaken ; we are 
about to stop, I will go and ask the conductor.” 


THE NA UTZ TAMIL Y. 


35 


Stop we did, long enough I thought, to give that 
engine' a meal ; victuals that would last until the mil- 
lennium. 

Once going, the Professor returned and remarked, — 
“ I zvas wrong Miss Theodora, the conductor informs 
me that they run slow in order not to run over the 
cattle ; and at this place they take the precaution of 
putting the cow-catcher upon the rear of the train.” 

What for } ” 

“ In order to keep the animals from running over 
it.” 

Absurd ! ” I cried, in disgust, and the Profes- 
sor smiled facetiously. 

Then it began to rain, not a gentle, pleasant, 
laughing shower; but a frowning drip-drizzle that 
gave me the blues, when I thought of my beautiful 
bonnet, and ashes-of-roses parasol. 

When we reached Hillsboro’ the conductor showed 
his face, and told me complacently, that the train I 
was to have taken here for the last few miles ride 
pad already gone — we had missed it. 

For what reason, he did not say, and no one else 
seemed to know, but that it was a conspiracy against 
my blue bonnet, I felt in my bones ; but plucking up 
courage, as he began to gather up my luggage, I 
asked when the next train would go out and he told 
me not until seven o’clock in the evening. 

Nine hours to wait at the depot, with no possibil- 


136 NAUTZ FAMILY. 

ity of getting anything to eat, since it was pouring its 
best, now. 

Nothing remained but that I should philosophi- 
cally fit myself to circumstances, since circumstances 
refused to adapt themselves to my pleasure ; so I 
made myself acquainted with the two or three travel- 
stained fretful little children, who trotted about the 
room : played hide and seek, and told them stories, 
till I had almost forgotten that I was left. 

Three o’clock came, it still poured, and I was 
wretchedly hungry. Then, it struck me that I was 
unacquainted with the contents of the little satchel, 
which Aunt Peggy had handeddn so gingerly, and I 
concluded to examine it, with the children’s help. 

“ Bless me,” I cried as I opened it, “ why didn’t 
you think of this before. Miss Stupidity. 

The dear old soul had put therein a lot of cookies, 
a couple of sandwiches, and a half dozen of crispy 
little pickles. 

“ Now we’ll have a party, and you are all invited,” 
I saia ; and the children danced with glee — then they 
all went to the other side of the room, while I spread 
the napkin in which my good things were wrapped 
upon the dusty seat ; and the children came back and 
knocked at the door, ^nd I played hostess, and g^ve 
them seats and distributed refreshments, and we were 
all as happy as happy could be, while a steady 
downpour dropped from the clouds, and dripped from 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


137 

the eaves and plunged in a stream from the water- 
spouts. 

By and by, when it was nearing the time for the 
train to arrive, and the children were fast asleep on 
the benches who should come into the depot but 
good William Judson, a drover who lived near Grand- 
mamma’s. I could have hugged him for joy, not- 
withstanding his pants were tucked into his great 
muddy boots. And when I had explained matters, 
the good man seeing that I was almost giving down, 
took all the burden off my mind, by telling me he 
would see me every step of the way to the farm, if 
Uncle Ulric was not at the station to meet me, and 
he thought it hardly possible having been expected 
in the niorning train. Sure enough, when we finally 
reached the station, no Uncle Ulric was visible ; the 
good drover carried my things into a neighbor’s house, 
borrowed an umbrella, and begged me to let him carry 
me. 

“ I am twelve years old,” I said, thinking that was 
sufficient. 

“ Well now, who would have thought it, you’re 
such a little mite.” 

But heavy as lead,” I answered. 

“ Let me see.” 

And before I knew what he was about, he had 
me in his strong arms and was wading through the 
seas of mud wilh the umbrella pitched at an angle, 


THE NAUTZ .FAMILY. 


138 

which sent all the drippings on my blue bonnet, but 
I held my peace, and am glad to this day that I did. 

When we reached the graveyard, I begged so hard 
to be let down that he finally complied, protesting 
against setting my gaitered feet in the clayey mire, 
which I soon foun d stuck with such tenacity that it 
was all I could do to draw them up at each step. We 
moved on slowly up the lane ; could distinguish the 
stems of the lombardy poplars faintly, then distin- 
guished the low, soft continual sighing of their leaves. 
Then we reached the gate, lifted the latch, and 
walked around to the side door ; Aunt Dora opened 
at the knock. 

Grandmamma, Uncle Ulric, Frantztony and Doc 
sat cosily paring and eating June apples. Theo- 
dora ! ” “ Nautz Nautz ! ” “ Dick ! ” were the vari- 

ous exclamations which greeted me. I stepped in- 
side, and stuck fast to the carpet. 

Grandmamma took me in hand, while Aunt Dora 
saw Mr. Judson off. What a battery of questions 
they flung at me, how Doc laughed and asked what it 
cost to have my face tattooed, and when Aunt Dora 
turned upon me with, — “ I should have thought you 
would have had sense enough to take your bonnet off, 
Theodora! ” and Uncle Ulric, whose curls stood up, 
whilst he unlaced my boots'^ remarked, — 

“Dick never means to become a ‘ muff/ it is self- 
evident I ” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


139 


I grew desperate; particularly when Frantztony 
capped the climax with, — 

“ What a pretty bonnet, to wear the rest of the 
summer,” — and slipping out of my muddy shoes, took 
the two dripping blue strings in my fingers, and 
swung it into Aunt Dora’s bedroom on her white 
counterpane saying, — 

“ Who cares, it will be as good as new to-morrow,” 
and fled to grandmamma’s arms, to be cuddled and 
soothed. 

Sure enough, the next morning found the blue bon- 
net in beautiful condition, considering the tribulation 
it had seen, having only faded a shade lighter. 

Aunt Dora was delighted but astonished. 

“Didn’t I tell you, nothing hurts me Aunt Dora.?” 

“ I hope it will always be so,” she answered sadly ; 
but I did not stay to question the matter with my 
Future, for farmer Strong’s team came rumbling down 
the road, with his tall, manly son Malcolm for driver, 
and catching sight of me, he reined in his horses and 
cried, — 

“ Good morning, Miss Sheldon, good morning, 
Theodora, I’m ever so glad you’ve come ; I met Will 
Judson this morning, and he told me you were here, 
wish I’d have known it, and I’d have been at the 
station myself, with Kitty and my trap ; she goes in 
three minutes and forty seconds now, and I’m coming 
to take you out, to try her, if you’ll go ! ” 


14 ' 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“ Won’t I though, it will be glorious, nothing ever 
went fast enough for me yet.” 

“ Are you at work on the road, Malcolm ? asked 
Aunt Dora. 

“ Yes’m, it has come father’s turn, and I’m hauling 
the gravel.” 

“ From where, Malcolm } ” 

“ From the gravel bank, three quarters of a mile up 
the road ! ” 

“ Malcolm, would you let me go ? ” I asked. 

“ Theodora } ” cried Aunt Dora. 

Malcolm’s eyes danced. “ Please let her -go. Miss 
Sheldon. I’ll take good care of her, and I have a 
sheepskin for her to sit upon.” 

“ Dora, let the child go,” came grandmamma’s dear 
voice from the sitting-room, and before Aunt Dora 
could answer, I had darted out and had been helped 
to the sheepskin seat. 

I have ridden behind many a high-stepping steed 
since, with cavaliers who successfully ran the entire 
social gamut but remember no drive, that brought me 
unalloyed delight, or made 

“ My heart’s quick pulses vibrate ” 

with their passionate want and out-reaching in such 
perfect harmony with Nature’s. 

Malcolm taught me so many things, stopped the 
team, and showed me where to find the first luscious 
dew-berries, glittering down among the wet grass ; 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 141 

and as we passed the graveyard, he pointed with his 
whip to a new mound and said, — 

‘'There is where old Mrs Colby, was buried last 
week. She was a good woman, when any one was 
sick, but awful stingy ; she' had her silver teaspoons 
put in her coffin.’^ 

This remark struck me forcibly, and I said, in re- 

ply— 

“ Malcolm, I think that is the grandest thing I ever 
heard of any one doing. You said she was a good 
nurse, now you know of course there must be sick 
people — especially babies — in heaven sometimes, and 
she remembered that, and took her best spoons along ; 
— I mean to do that too — If I ever have any silver 
teaspoons, you know,” — I remarked reflectively. 

Malcolm made no reply, so I presumed he was con- 
vinced of the old lady’s disinterestedness. When we 
reached the gravel bank, Malcolm helped fill my apron 
pockets with pretty pebbles and dainty little shells, 
while the men loaded his wagon ; then we drove back 
another way, and coming around the rear of Squire 
Johns’ farm, he pointed out a persimmon tree, loaded 
with fruit. 

Did you ever eat June persimmons } I have. And 
found them so delightful that I took a pocketful of 
fine ones to Doc and Frantztony. 

That one disinterested act of my life was not ap- 
preciated. 


142 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


Then I found out where the golden rod and feath- 
ery birch grew, and reached home, brimful of news 
and hungry as a young lion. 

The very next day, I cajoled Frantztony down 
Squire Johns’ lane, to the swampy ground where 
the birch grew. 

We took a basket to gather moss, but my object 
was — birch. 

Who could see the long sprays of peach-colored 
bloom nodding and waving like plumes in the wind, 
without coveting it Had we persuaded Doc to go 
it would have been wiser. . We started out in imma- 
culate pink chintz and white stockings, we came back 
a sight to behold. 

The ground was broken into little hummocks, upon 
which we stepped gingerly : from one to another we 
went, sometimes under calculating the leap, and miss- 
ing : the consequence was, mud splashes, black as 
tar. 

All at once, Frantztony screamed and dropped her 
birch. 

“ What’s the matter, Frantztony Nautz.?” 

“ Hornets ! ” she gasped. 

“ Hornets don’t build in the grass, they’re yellow 
jackets, and sting worse ; why don’t you come off } ” 

“ They’ll all fly up, if I do ! ” 

Then the best thing you can do, is to stay there 
and hold them down/’^^ 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


143 


Dear, dear, I wished I’d stayed at home ! ” 

“Sing a hymn, Frantztony, while I run and get 
some one to help you.” 

“ I can’t, they buzz so, I couldn’t keep in tune.” 

Just then, the barking of a dog, reached our ears, 
and looking up the lane, here came Towzer, Squire 
Johns’ great mastiff, tearing toward us with immense 
leaps, urged on by the vSquire’s hopeful son and heir, 
a young theological student just returned from col- 
lege. 

As he clapped his hands and laughed, my esteem 
for theological students dropped to zero. Had we 
known, what he did, that Towzer was an ancient and 
toothless quadruped, incapable of anything beyond 
bark and snarl, we might have entered into the spirit 
of the sport with greater relish. And when the dog 
made a rush at Frantztony, she sprang frantically to 
the next hillock and the next, the yellow jackets 
swarmed out and took possession of Towzer. 

“ The grass did not grow under our feet ” on the 
return trip, but when we reached the spot where 
Clarence Johns stood waiting, and he saw our sorry 
flight, he seemed to have some faiiit regret, that he 
had added to our fright, and tried to make amends by 
leaping over the orchard fence, and bringing us great 
sweet apples. 

Frantztony accepted hers : — I, indignant, insulted 
that no outright apology was made, turned my back 


144 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


upon him, and walked away home ; with my armful of 
feathery plumes waving over my spattered shoulder. 

“ How did you come with so much mud, Theo- 
dora ? ” asked grandmamma, as she rocked in her old 
arm-chair on the porch. 

“ Got it in the swamp, but then it paid. I 
couldn’t get the birch without.” ' 

“ Who will v/ash and iron your clothes, if you do 
this every day 1 ’’ % 

This phase of the subject was a new one. 

“ Bless me grandmamma, I never thought of it, but 
I will now ; I’ll stay in Aunt Dora’s sanctum and 
read Fox’s Martyrs all day to-morrow : I hate it, be- 
cause it makes my bones hurt and my ffesh creep, 
but ril do ity' and I did. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


I4S 


CHAPTER XVII. 

As I look back over these years, I am not in the 
least ashamed that we were on a continual “ rampage ; ” 
for all creation and its inhabitants were continually 
turning either their ludicrous or witty side toward us 
young burlesquers. 

Among the people who afforded us untold amuse- 
ment at this time, was an old gentleman who had de- 
veloped an especial liking for my father. He was 
brimful of eccentricities, and never made an utterance 
that was commonplace. He was the proprietor of 
what I styled Noah’s Ark;” since his store com- 
bined a little of everything made, from the creation 
of the world down to the year of our Lord, eigh- 
teen hundred and seventy.. What trivial excuses 
Doc and I made, for the purpose of rummaging 
through “ Noah’s Ark.” 

Now it was a beater to my hoop, or handles for 
our jumping ropes, or mayhapi a round file, or a shot 
pouch ; and to see the dear white-haired old man, 
with his glasses pushed up on his head, peering 
among his stores for our small necessities was good 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


146 

enough in itself. But such things as we unearthed, 
from a needle threader up to the first plough ; an as- 
sortment of bonnets ranging from the Plantagenets 
down ; doll babies with one eye, which rolled hide- 
ously, paintings and stovepipes in juxtaposition ; axes 
with the edges turned, hobnobbing with glittering 
sword blades ; ancient books and easy chairs ; masks 
and stage dresses, and all the concomitants that go 
to make the very charm and quintessence of a first 
class “ second-hand store.” 

How this old gentleman, with his vast fund of 
information upon every subject, from the theory of 
evolution to perpetual motion up and down, ever 
came to settle in such a business, was to say the 
least wonderful. 

He was usually in the habit of taking tea with us 
Sunday evenings ; and having his own i5articular idea 
upon the manner in which children should be dieted, 
from the first stirred up the minds of my parents, 
upon the injury to our constitutions, by allowing us- 
to drink tea and coffee. 

Papa and mamma agreed that it was undoubtedly 
wrong : whereupon the old gentleman at once called 
for hot water, cream and molasses. 

Being waited upon, he proceeded to prepare four 
cups of what I termed “ slop Doc called it “cam- 
bric tea,” the three of us elevated our democratic 
noses in disgust and pushed back our cups ; Frantz 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


147 

tony because she was dutiful, and it was Sunday, 
swallowed hers. 

Papa, observing my motion, called me to him af- 
terward, and told me it was disrespectful to our guest 
not to drink what he had prepared : for answer I ran 
to the dining-room and brought back my cup, asking 
him to taste;, the swallow seemed to suffice, for he 
made a grimace, and said no more. Nevertheless the 
old gentleman’s little freak was indulged every Sab- 
bath evening, and the cups stood untouched at all the 
places but Frantztony’s. 

But there came a time, when one eccentricity of 
which he was possessed insured our relief. He held 
the belief that it was quite possible to invent a suc- 
cessful flying machine.” For years he directed his 
learning and genius toward this attainment, and hav- 
ing arrived at what he believed success, ascended to 
the roof of the smoke-house, to try his “wings.” 
With a mighty effort he went up a few feet, but as 
suddenly, with a reverse action the wonderful machine 
careered and brought the inventor to the earth, with 
a broken shoulder-blade. 

“ Now then,” said Doc, when his disaster reached 
his ears, — “Now then, I guess he’ll not fix any more 
sweetened wind for us.” And we had our revenge. 

At this time we lived upon the banks of the 
river ; papa’s property taking in a full square. 

First came the store, where finished leather was 


148 the hautz family. 

hung and sold, next the house, a low old-fashioned 
frame, in which we lived ; then a tenant house, then 
the tanyard and next, the large frame house, in 
which Mr. Hepborn, papa’s partner, lived. He was 
an English gentleman, who had crossed the waters 
about the same time as we returned to America ; and 
had sons and daughters, large and small, fair and 
dark. 

Mrs. Hepborn — a dear little woman who seemed to 
have been born with a remarkable nack for darningy 
after the original fabric had disappeared entirely, and 
who must have entered life, with a sock already 
stretched upon her small fist, since I never remember 
seeing her without her usual work — added more than 
she ever knew, to the stock of fun Doc and I always 
had on hand. 

Once, I remember, she called me to the fence, held 
up a fine thrifty tomato plant, and asked, — 

“ Theodora, can you tell what his the matter with 
my tomatoes, they don’t bear at hall } ” 

“ It isn’t time yet,” I answered. 

Hisn’t time yet, child, why, Mr. Hepborn got 
some at the market this morning.” 

“ They came out of the hothouses.” 

“ ’Ot ’ouses ? Then when will mine bear fruit ? 
There hisn’t a sign of a tomato hon them ; I’ve 
pulled nearly hall up, and they’re hall alike ! ” 

I forgot my manners, and screamed with delight, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


149 


the little woman expected to find the tomatoes in the 
ground, as potatoes grow, and had consequently, been 
industriously digging them up to find fruit. I tried 
to explain the matter, but she either mistrusted me, 
because I had laughed, or else really could not under- 
stand : so I ran home to tell this good thing to Doc, 
who was lying on the sofa in the middle of a chill, 
and sent mamma over, to verify what I had already 
told Mrs. Hepborn. Poor Doc, how he did laugh, 
while his teeth chattered, and then the chills ran a 
race up and down his spine, and clutched his heart 
until the blood seemed to pass from the right to the 
left ventricle in a frozen stream, which swept like ice 
through his veins, and sent him into a spasm of 
shivers while he groaned, — 

“ An-o-ther blan-n-n-ket D-i-i-ck, an’ ho-t b-r-r-icks 
an’ a d-o-s-e Col-e-gog.” 

All of which orders I obeyed, giving a double dose 
of colegog, in the belief that if one dose was good, two 
doses were better. 

And then I ran about in search of a full grown cob- 
web, with which to make a pill ; and bringing it to 
Doc, dropped it between his chattering teeth telling 
him, that now he would be jctter ; which sure enough 
he was, whether owing to the pill, or the natural 
course of chills, I cannot say and then, the blankets 
disappeared over the back of the sofa, and the bricks 
came with a crash to the floor, and Doc roared like a 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY, 


150 ^ 

young simoon for water/' and turned all in a mo- 
ment, from the meekest of patience into the most 
abominable young tyrant, which I soon put a stop to, 
by saying, — 

St. Jerome De Graff, you like plum cake } ” 

“Yes, of course I do.’’ 

“ None of your American stingy cakes, you know, 
with one raisin stuck in the middle — ” I went on, — 

“No sir ! ” said Doc. 

“ But the genuine thing, that the English beef 
eater’s like, stuffed chuck full, of raisins and currants 
and citron and lemon ” 

“ And all the rest,” said Doc, “ where’s the cake ^ ” 

“ I didn’t say / had any.” 

“ But you have, you wouldn’t tease a sick man like 
that, Dick, would you ? ” 

“ Well, if you are the sick man ; no, here it is, 
Mrs. Hepborn sent it to you, and she had one of 
Marmaduke’s socks stretched over her fist all the time 
she was cutting it.” 

“ Was it clean } ” asked Doc. 

“ What, the fist } ” 

“ No, stupid, the sock.” 

“ Give me that cake, or beg my pardon, like the 
high-bred gentleman you are.” 

“ Delectable angel ; peaches and cream, and honey 
on a rag, I humbly beg your pardon—” said Doc^ with 
a mouthful of cake. 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


“ Granted ; but mind you never abuse your nurse ; 
day after to-morrow you’ll have another chill.” 

Doc made a grimace, and bolted the last morsel of 
plum cake, just as the door opened and Aunt Peggy 
entered. She had but just returned from a visit to 
her daughter. 

Now one of Aunt Peggy’s peculiarities consisted in 

pockets,” She commenced with her dress and put 
a pocket in every seam ; the seams coming to an end, 
she made great bags, and attached strings, and tied 
them about her waist, under the dress ; therefore 
when she travelled, the greater part of her portable 
property, was contained in the pockets. She was 
something of a doctress, as well as a nurse, and com- 
pounded various medical articles and doses, which she 
always carried about her, like a good Samaritan, ready 
for any emergency. 

One thing she manufactured, and about which I 
always felt great interest, was what she styled “ Bread 
of Life ” — a wonderful, opaque substance, which 
looked like clay with diamond dust, mixed in it, but 
which, upon tasting, you found capable of elevating 
every particular hair upon your head ; by reason of 
its strength ; as well as taking every particle of skin 
off your throat. But the patient who adhered to a 
certain daily dose of the Bread of Life,” need have 
no fear of dying, at all. 

It just occurs to me here, that if those who have 


152 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


already found the famous Fountain of Youth of the 
renowned Ponce de Leon would unite to its draughts, 
the taking of a morsel of the “Bread of Life’’ the 
effects might be something wonderful. 

At this present speaking, Aunt Peggy, waddled into 
4he room, loaded in all quarters. 

“ Well Miss The’dora, how’s everybody and your 
Tiother, and what’s the matter with Master J’rome } ” 

“ We’re all well but Doc, and he has the chills.” 

“ Nasty things,” said Doc, “ as if it wasn’t enough 
to have had a broken arm.” 

‘‘Now Master J’rome,” said Aunt Peggy, “I just 
thought you’d be a having them pretty soon, when 
you went and drank that fresh buttermilk and went 
out in the sun to fish.” 

“ Will that give you the chills Aunt Peggy } ” I 
asked. 

“ ’Course it will, chile.” 

Here was a discovery ; if it could be utilized what 
unheard of wealth it might bring me. Papa was an 
inventor and always experimenting, I was no true 
daughter, if I did not at least make one effort to follow 
in his footsteps. 

Hence, when the next day’s sun, came down with a \ 
merciless scorch on the white stone steps at the front 
door, I crept into the spring house, dipped up a great 
mug of fresh buttermilk from the churn, and proceeded 
to business. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


153 


It was terribly hot, and buttermilk was always 
loathsome in the highest degree, to my palate, but, 
for the mere gratification of temporal comfort, would 
I let humanity broil in July and August, when by 
such a simple experiment, I might confer a benefit 
which would endure until the millennium ? 

Not I, indeed ! Therefore I raised my tankard, 
sipped my buttermilk with as much unction as if it 
had been the nectar of the gods, and bared my head to 
the sun. I reached the bottom of the mug, and felt 
that I was slowly melting and that my brain was baked 
to a cinder — therefore considering the trial to have 
lasted a sufficient length of time, I took myself into 
the house and to bed all that afternoon, with a blind 
sick headache ; but refused steadfastly to give any 
reason for it. 

I stuck to my purpose valiantly, despite being 
burned “ black as an Indian,” but the experiment 
was of no avail ; buttermilk and sun-baths would not 
do the work for me ; and to this day I have been 
doomed to live without knowing the delicious sensation 
of a refreshing “ chill ” in July. 

To those who choose, however, to try the experi 
ment, I give a hearty God-speed, and success to you. 


54 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


CHAPTER XVIII. " 

With the inborn knowledge that girls, in the long 
run, disappointed me ; that there was about them 
a something limp and placid that failed to meet and 
fill my out-reaching heart and nature, — what wonder 
that the true, manly boy, shadowing forth the latent 
strength and fortitude of after years, touched with 
these traits the corresponding chords within my 
child’s heart, and made me know, with a child’s in- 
definite feeling, that here stood the future master of 
my life’s harmonies or discords, as the case might be. 

Although my boy friends were many, I was not 
conscious of a distinctive love for any particular one. 
It seemed as though each one struck with vibrant 
thrills some one magnetic chord within my nature ; 
but it took all combhted to make the harmonious whole 
which alone would satisfy my heart. 

And when, by and by, I grew to be one of their 
number in almost every excursion, I had the satis- 
factory feeling that I was missed by them all if it 
chanced that I was ever detained ; when such a de- 
tention happened, what marvellous tributes of affec- 
tionate consideration those boys brought me ; the 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


155 


’* Indian smoke 4)ipe,” white and unsullied as new 
snow ; lovely lichens holding up tiny cups to catch the 
dew ; “ slippery elm ” bark ; clumps of exquisite 
moss, in full bloom, with an array of lilliputian sol- 
diersi standing stiff and upright, hats half off ; mussel 
shells of pink and purple and cloudy pearl. Do girls 
ever think of each other in that way } I wot not. 

Among them was a boy whose nature was as sweet, 
dusky and fragrant as a June twilight. No time nor 
tide can ever wash his memory from out my heart. 

He never made any showy manifestations of affec- 
tion, but was content if each day found me in a mood 
to let him see me to and from school, carrying my 
books and slate with his. At the gate we always 
parted, he saying, in his sweet, bright voice, — 

“Thank you, Theodora,” as though I had conferred 
some great favor— and if by any chance I gave him a 
smile, or pulled a rose from my belt and reached it to 
him, the great blue eyes were straightway dim with 
tears. 

Sometimes, in a fit of royal fellowship and good 
feeling, I would even listen when he begged me to 
come in and let him swing me in the great-boat swing 
which hung in his back yard. 

With the knowledge which came later, I have cause 
to believe that those times, when he sat by my side 
and kept that great machine going, transported him 
to a heaven of delight 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


156 

Once he coaxed me to go ‘^coasting,” and half way 
down that long icy slide, a hidden snag threw us into 
the air, and I came down with force upon an old 
oyster can, which cut a great ragged hole in my 
knee. 

Can I ever forget how tenderly his trembling fingers 
bound up the wound with his handkerchief, while I 
sat, white^as death, struggling to keep my senses ; and 
he kept moaning, — “ Oh ! Theodora, to think that 1 
did this ; and I wouldn’t have hurt you for worlds and 
worlds.” 

Nor yet, how he made a cushion of his overcoat, 
and comforter and mittens even, to lay me on, and 
draw me gently home, — telling the whole story in firm, 
manly tones, shielding me, taking the whole blame, 
begging to do anything in restitution. 

George ! George La Rue, from out the heaven 
where you walk to-day, do your thoughts ever wander 
back to the child-woman, for whom you died, and love 
her still } Judging all the errors of her life, — for 
which she has paid a heavy forfeit, — with the tender- 
ness no other can ever feel, because they cannot 
“ know ” her as you did } 

Do you remember that one lovely eve when you 
rowed me up the river, past and underneath long rows 
of willows, which hung their fingers in the singing 
waters ; on, past the old sycamores whose branches 
hung full of beauteous spheroids ; far up to the old 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 


157 

weatherbeaten mill, where the great wheel, filled and 
emptied its buckets with such lazy ease ? Nor how 
I, leaning over, dabbling my fingers in the gurgling 
waves, which lapped the sides of “ The Helen,’’ saw 
all at once a crescent moon, and her attendant even- 
ing star, and broke the happy silence with, — “ George ! 
I wish you could row down, down, down, through all 
the world, till we came out on the other side, and 
caught up with the moon and the evening star, and 
went sailing with them, forever and Torever ! ” Nor 
how the blue eyes dilated with quick sympathy, and 
your answer was, — 

“ I love you, Theodora, and mean to live and die 
for you.” 

“ Very well,’’ I answered solemnly, as though I 
were a queen upon her throne, and only accepting the 
homage^due me. 

And then you asked, — 

“ Do you love pond lilies, Theodora ? Great, creamy 

things, as big as cups and sweet as as love } ” 

Pond lilies O, George ! ” 

“ We can’t get them to-night, because they grow 
ever so far up stream, past the old mill, — ” 

Past the old mill,” I echoed, dreamily. 

And it is getting dusk, we must go back. But I 
will come and get them for you, Dora, dear,” with a 
lingering of the sweet voice upon the last word. 

“ Thank you,” I said, gently, and then we rowed 


58 . 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL V. 


swiftly back, and you sprang ashore and made the 
boat fast, and stood on the pebbly beach holding out 
your hands to me ; and with clasped fingers we walked 
up the bank and around the corner home, parting at 
the gate. 

But two days afterward, when “The Helen” up- 
turned, came drifting downward with the current, .a 
trail of water-lilies in her wake, long before they 
brought your form and laid it in your mother’s arms, 
I knew that you had ‘ died for me..’ ” 

In a dusky fastness of my heart’s garden, I hewed 
you out a sepulchre ; there upon a bed of water-lilies, 
I laid my beautiful dead, and there to-day you rest, 
a vital power, a living presence, through all my life. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


^59 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Who is able to tell, with any degree of certainty 
for what different metals he shall prove a loadstone ? 

It therefore behooves me, being true to history, to 
tell the manner in which I was made aware of an ad- 
miration, hitherto unknown. 

At this time, Frances and myself had been removed 
from the free to a select school, taught by a lady, 
more pretty than wise, more lymphatic than long-suf- 
suffering. 

Here, as everywhere, the boys were the friends 
upon whom I placed dependence for future need ; 
while the feminine portion served present uses. At 
the afternoon session of a cold, raw, March day, one 
of the elder girls, came bringing me a tiny letter, sealed 
in approved style with two doves billing and cooing. 

It was just before the bell rang ; we all stood about 
the stove, warming ; at the sight of that letter every 
girl turned jealous. 

I received it with feelings mixed ; broke the seal, 
read the contents with rising indignation, reached the 
name, — Horace Carnes, — and felt my cheeks turn hot 

Not one of those girls present, but would have felt 


6o 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


proud that the aristocratic Carnes boy should have 
singled her out from among such a “ rosebud garden 
of girls — ” save myself. That queer, little, sensitive, 
callous, shrinking and bold atom of womanhood — me ! 
who could be won by “ a gradation of gentle ap- 
proaches,” alone. 

I waved the girls aside, walked to the stove, opened 
it, tossed the letter in, shut the door with a vim, and 
rubbed my fingers with my handkerchief, vigorously. 

All the girls were “ dying ” to know the contents 
of that letter, but only one of them — for whom I had 
use — should ever know them from me. 

Ann Fawkes was a tall, bronze image, who attracted 
me, because she rarely spoke ; in truth, never, unless 
forced to. 

I rarely looked at the girl, but a shivering sensa- 
tion of prior knowledge of her existence, — not of a 
pleasant nature, — forced itself upon me. Later, I 
worked out this feeling by a somewhat far-fetched, 
but satisfactory analysis, — it is this : — Once, while 
living in the great city of London, on a certain awful 
night in November, Doc, Frantztony and myself, for 
some reason, had been left alone for an hour or two ; 
we sat cuddled together upon the floor, before the 
long drawing-room window, watching the passers-by, 
then the lamp-lighters with their links ; Anally, an 
awful swaying multitude ; a forest of heads and blink- 
ing lights, which came reeling down the street with 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. l6i 

such unearthly shrieks, groans and yells, as only an 
English mob can create. 

m 

On they came, we three shrinking, and shivering 
with fear ! 

In the midst — an awful human form — as we thought 
— upheld to be beaten, stoned, egged, cursed ; onward 
they swayed, struggled, rocked, until they reached the 
open square, where a hasty gallows was improvised 
and the human fac simile — as it proved to be — hung 
thereon. Afterwards, with renewed yells and curses> 
it was cut down, bound to a stake, faggots heaped 
about it, and set on fire ; the flames went dancing, 
and revdling about the thing to the mad delight of 
the multitude, while we ignorant children sat glued to 
the spot, shivering and horror-stricken, beholding, as 
it proved, the burlesque burning of Guy Fawkes, of 
gunpowder fame. 

Ann always took me back to that time, and I 
thought I could trace a resemblance to Guy. 

With such an ancestor, on the other side of the 
water, she would assuredly serve my purpose, although 
the harm I contemplated was neither great nor 
lasting. 

After school, I beckoned her to me, took my way 
to the alcove of the church door, next the school 
house, and told her what I wanted. 

“ Ann, you know I got a letter T' I said. 

The bronze statue nodded. 


i 62 


' THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“And it was from Horace Carnes ?” 

The velvet pupils dilated with interest." 

“ And he says he loves, loves me,;;^^, — bah,” — with 
contempt. 

The image winked its black eyes and nodded re- 
peatedly. 

“ And^he asked me — to be his girl ! ” scornfully. 

The bronze statue frowned, and beat the stone step 
with its foot. 

“ Ann, you remember George La Rue 

The velvet pupils grew dim with wistful tears, 
while the bronze head acquiesced. 

“ I never told any one else, and you would die 
h&iorcj/ou would tell it, Ann 

The bronze image made a gesture as if tearing out 
its tongue and shredding it. 

“ Well, — George died for me, because he loved me ; 
but he never once called me ^ his girl,’ nev^r once 
Ann, but I think I was, I think I was.” 

Here I sobbed — and a bronze arm stole around my 
shoulders. 

“The hateful pussycat, — ” I exclaimed, and the 
arm withdrew itself. 

“ Not you, Ann dear, I like you, because you aren’t 
like the rest — but that Carnes boy — ‘ his girl’ — how 
dared he 

Ann doubled a bronzed hand into a fist and shook 
it menacingly. 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL K 1 63 

“That’s just it Ann, — I mean — to — whip — him! 
Do you hear that, Ann ?” 

The black eyes danced with delight. 

“ Well, — he said I should ‘ wait on the church steps 
for him ; and I’m going to, and I want you to hold my 
books and be ready to help, if I caiit whip him.” 

The whole bronze body bent and nodded in answer. 
“ He will come directly, be ready I” 

Ann laid her books down, piled mine on top, set my 
slate in the corner, took her own, and, with a few 
rapid strokes, made a sketch of a genuine prize fight 
between the Carnes boy and myself. 

The Carnes boy came out, with a closed eye, and a 
hen’s egg on his forehead — I walked off in the oppo- 
site direction, swinging my books by the strap and 
saying wrath fully, “ His girl, indeed I ” 

Just here we heard the Carnes boy come around the 
corner, whistling, — 

“No one to love, — ” 

And we stepped close, back in'' the doorway. The 
bronze statue stood rigid. My small fists were 
clenched and my small foot outset for the first spring. 
On he came, was opposite, and I flew like a ball from 
its muzzle, straight at the mark I 

The small fists descended in a shower of blows, and 
the Carnes boy howled at first, but finally broke into a 
genuine cry ; at which, the bronze statue came to life 
and danced ! 


164 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


^‘You Carnes boy,” said I, between the blows, 
“ will you ever write another love-letter ? ” 

“ N-0-0-0 ! ” blubbered he. 

^ And never m all your life^ ask any one to be your 
girlf ” 

“ Ne-ver ! ” whined he. 

“ Then I want you to know, that I hate ! hate ! ! 
hate you ! ! ! And you must never dare to look at me, 
or I shall have all the boys of my acquaintance to 
whip you for me ! Now then go ! ” 

And the aristocratic Carnes boy shot around the 
corner. 

With whatever of satisfaction, I may have walked 
home, after so thoroughly and summarily punishing 
my audacious lover, it is but stating the truth, when I 
mention that I did not contemplate with complacency 
the next day’s contest with my teacher — Miss Prim. 
However, being well braced up by the enthusiastic 
praise and admiration of the boys : duly convinced by 
them, that I had “ served the Carnes boy right,” and 
that my “ pluck ” had increased their esteem ; also, 
being admonished by them, “ not to yield an inch to 
Miss Prim,” I stepped bravely into the schoolroom, 
walked silently to my seat and began my lessons. 

A rap on the desk, followed by profound silence, 
and Miss Prim began, — 

Theodora De Graff ! ” 

Present,” I answered innocently. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 165 

“ Theodora De Graff/’ with splenetic vim — step 
here ! ” 

Yes ma’am.” 

I walked up the room, conscious that twenty-four 
pairs of eyes were upon me, and with the determina- 
tion to do myself credit at least. 

‘‘Young lady,” with a sneer, “how came you to 
disgrace yourself and my school by such an act as 
that of last evening V 

“ Miss Prim, I don’t think anyone is disgraced but 
the aristocraticCarnes boy, and if he hadn’t been a 
coward he wouldn’t have been disgraced either.” 

Here one or two of the boys on the lookout for an 
opportunity, nodded approval. But Miss Prim, in- 
flated with wrath, cracked the desk with her ruler and 
said, — 

“ I tell you, you have disgraced yourself and my 
school.” 

“ And I tell you \ have not. Let a boy be manly 
and I’ll never raise my fist against him : let him be a 
coward and insult me, the smallest girl in this school, 
and ril grind him to powder and give him to the 
wmd!'^' 

Miss Prim caught her breath, while several of the 
boys made the motion of applause. 

“Theodora De Graff,” she screamed, “you should 
have been a boy yourself, and then you could have 


i66 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


fought Without scandalizing every young lady in my 
school.” 

Miss Prim, I think myself, that God meant me to 
be a boy, but you see,” musingly, “ He made a mis- 
take, and put -my boy’s soul into a girl’s body ; and 
He’s been sorry ever since — and so have I ! ” 

My lips quivered a little here, for it was an awful 
thing to contemplate God’s mistake — but immediately 
I drew up, rigid and cold, when Miss Prim shrieked, — 

“You infamous little infidel, how dare you talk in 
that way ;\ou shall be punished for this disrespect to 
myself and this disgrace to my school.” 

“ Punish me 1 ” I asked, with a voice like ice. 

“ Yes fou, Theodora De Graff ! ” 

“What will papa say.^^ Pm not afraid, but if you 
strike me once, you will be sorry, and you know it.” 

She did know it, for without the support of papa’s 
influence, she would have been lost. But to maintain 
the attitude she had chosen, before her pupils, she 
was obliged to say, — 

“ I will give you, and your accomplice Ann Fawkes, 
the choice between two modes of punishment ; either 
to be feruled or to take a note home to your parents.” 

“ I shall take the note.” 

“ Ann Fawkes, step here ; will you be feruled or 
take a note } ” 

The bronze image nodded, as if she meant to take 
both, without once opening her mouth. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


167 


Which ? ” asked Miss Prim. 

Take the note Ann,” I said, determined she should 
not be punished for me. 

Ann bent the bronze head, and nodded gleefully 
while Miss Prim who had counted upon cooling her 
wrath upon my innocent image, grew white with 
suppressed spleen,— 

Go to your seats ! ” she commanded. 

As we walked up the aisle, Charlie Bolton slipped a 
beautiful bell-fleur into my apron pocket; Dan De 
Witt held up his slate with the word “ Bravo ” written 
in capitals, and John Pope stuck a note in my hand, 

which read 

Theodora, you’re a trump ! ” 

With Miss Prim, I was in disgrace, without a doubt. 
Ann and myself were forbidden to come to our classes, 
or sit near the girls ; at recess, the latter, remember- 
ing that Miss Prim had called me an infidel, withdrew 
themselves to a clump of old quince trees, and talked 
me over, while Ann and myself, had undisputed pos- 
session of the swing and ten boys clamoring to push. 

And just here let me say, that this abominable self- 
righteousness, is the ruin of all womankind. 

Does a sister make a misstep, or fall into disgrace, 
we gather up our skirts and turn our heads the other 
way, ignoring the poor ohe whom mayhap, just a 
gentle word or two or a tender clasping of the hand, 
would set upon her feet, again, open the way, and 


i68 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


show her the light Women, as a class, judge men 
— who are more able to outlive disgrace or contumely 
— with charity, where they give their own sex but 
harshness. 

Mend your ways, oh women of the universe, or God 
may teach you his golden rule, with heavy lessons of 
experience. 

At the close of the session, all were dismissed but 
Ann and myself — whereupon Miss Prim took a full 
half hour to construct our two notes ; finally having 
finished, we were ordered to advance and receive 
them. After having commanded us to take them, 
straight to our parents, we withdrew ; but I soon 
found, that I was not to get off so easily. 

For no sooner had I given the note to papa and 
mamma — Doc and P'rantztony each speaking a good 
word for me — and my heart had begun to rise, at 
seeing papa angrily tear it up, than the bell rang, and 
Miss Prim was announced. 

I think that decided papa, he tossed the scraps of 
paper into the fire and turning to us, bade us leave 
them, for the present. 

A half hour afterward, the matter was evidently 
adjusted to Miss Prim’s satisfaction, and I was called 
in to beg her pardon. 

“ Beg Miss Prim’s pardon, papa De Graff t ” 

“Yes, Theodora, tell Miss Prim you are sorry for 
what you have done and said.” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


169 

‘‘Papa, I won’t tell a lie; I ain’t sorry I beat the 
Carnes Boy, because he is a disgrace J:o his sex, and I 
haven’t said one word that I am ashamed of.” 

“Never mind, Mr. De Graff,” said Miss Prim, 
sweetly,” I will forgive Theodora, if she will come and 
kiss me.” 

“ No, ma’am, I will not kiss you ; you have nothing 
to forgive. You called me an ‘ infamous infidel,’ and 
set the girls against me. Yoil ought to beg my 
pardon.” 

“ Theodora,” said papa. 

“ Papa, papa ! ” I cried, as I flung my arms about 
his neck, and sobbed, “ I can’t love Miss Prim, and I 
couldn’t help being born a girl, with a boy’s soul.” 

Papa hugged me close, and Miss Prim arose rigidly, 
saying : 

“I had better retire.” 

Mamma saw her to the door, while papa stroked 
my hair, and murmured, “ Poor little girl ; the road 
before you is rough and hard,” which I didn’t at all 
understand. But the next day we were removed from 
Miss Prim-’s select school. 


170 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 


CHAPTER XX. 

Every set of boys have periodical fevers of one 
sort or another. My set started out in February with 
the “ marble ” fever ; this raged until March, when 
the “ kite ” fever set in ; then followed, in quick suc- 
cession, the several “ ball ” fevers, and so on, through 
the whole catalogue. 

My set always caught the “shell” fever in the 
spring ; this I took, by contagion. The boys perceiv- 
ing the state of affairs, put their heads together in 
consultation, which ended in taking me into partner- 
ship. I was soon supplied with a full set of files — 
round, half-round and triangular, which Prince John 
and Doc instructed me to use. After high water, the 
river beach lay strewn with mussel shells of exquisite 
delicacy and coloring, and many an excursion we made 
to obtain supplies against rainy days, during which 
Marmaduke, Albert, Prince John and Doc dressed the 
shells to a convenient size for handling, and set me to 
work drilling holes through bits of purple, and pink, 
and pearl. 

At this operation, I soon became such a skilful 
workman that by degrees the quartette shifted its en- 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


171 

tire hole-drilling upon their willing apprentice-partner, 
taking to themselves, as more advanced artists, the 
delicate work of finishing and polishing. This they 
argued, I could not do, being a girl. There being, 
therefore, four polishers to one hole-driller, it is evi- 
dent to all that the demand was in excess of the sup- 
ply, notwithstanding my increased efforts to cope 
w'ith the exorbitant expectations of the senior partners 
of the firm. 

In the course of time, there was a good-sized hole 
drilled in the palm of my left hand, and it became so 
painful that I, one day, showed it to papa. 

He looked at it attentively, and then astonished me 
by saying, — 

I suspect, little girl, the boys are making a ^ cat’s 
paw ’ of you.” 

“A 'cat’s paw ! ’ What is that, papa 

" Once upon a time, a monkey and a cat sat before 
a great open fireplace ; the fire had burned down until 
there was only a splendid bed of coals, into which the 
monkey was thrusting chestnuts to roast. The cat, 
not caring for chestnuts, was only a spectator. 

“ Presently the kernels began to steam and swell, and 
finally, with a hiss, the shells popped open. Then 
Mr. Monkey looked about for something to draw his 
roasted chestnuts from the fire, and, seeing the cat, 
pounced upon her, and with her claws began to rake 
them out. It ended in a great uproar. And now you 


72 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


see, my dear, the boys have been using you to do the 
work they are not willing to do for themselves.” 

“ Do they you any of the chestnuts ? ” 

Rings, and crosses, anchors, and hearts, you mean 
papa ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ No sir, not yet, but I guess they will, the boys 
aren’t stingy.” 

“ But they are selfish,” said papa. “ I will tell you 
what to do ; for the present you are disabled, call a 
meeting of the boys and demand a hearing. State 
the facts : tell them you have held a consultation 
with your counsel, who advises an immediate with- 
drawal from the firrn, if there is not an equal division 
of the labor, and see ,what will come of it.” 

I hugged papa in an ecstacy of delight, and danced 
out. 

That afternoon, at my call, the boys came to our 
meeting place under the apple tree. I immediately 
stood up in the swing and began, — 

“ Gentlemen : Ever since the first of April, I have 
been hole-driller for the crowd, — “ here Albert winked 
at Prince John, who looked surprised and annoyed — 
I proceeded, “ It is now the last of June ” — pointing 
to the ground strewn with green apples — “ and not 
as yet, seeing any particular good that has come to 
me, I desire that some one will define my relations, 
to this firm.” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY^ 


-173 

Profound silence reigned. 

Gentlemen : allow me to show you the results of 
hole-drilling, here I stepped down, walked around 
the circle and exhibited my sore palm. I will do 
them the credit to say that every boy’s countenance 
expressed surprise. Returning to my stand on the 
swing board, and balancing myself dexterously, I sur- 
veyed my audience, to which Trauntyand Frantztony 
had added themselves, and began anew. 

“ Having consulted my learned council — ” 

“ Hear, hear ! ” shouted Doc “ where did the girl 
get her words } ” 

In truth, I astonished myself, and perceiving that 
the elegance of my rhetoric — which I had studied 
with papa — was having its effect, I determined to 
soar higher still, and carry them by storm. 

“ Having consulted my learned counsel — ” 

Who is your learned counsel ^ ” asked Marma- 
duke. 

The three witches, whom I met in the dark of the 
moon, under the old willow tree, on the river bank,” 
I retorted, and had the satisfaction of seeing that my 
words told on the entire crowd, especially Frantztony 
and Traunty Nautz, whose eyes grew big as moons. 

Having consulted my learned counsel, I am ad- 
vised to demand immediate satisfaction for past work, 
and an equal share of future gains, or to withdraw 
from the firm at once. Gentlemen and partners, I 


^74 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


will now retire and give you five minutes for consul- 
tation.” 

Hereupon, I stepped down, picked up a green ap- 
ple or two, polished them on the corner of my apron, 
and walked away, while the boys gathered in a knot, 
Frantztony and Traunty pressing close. 

Inside of the allotted time, Traunty ran to the wil- 
low tree, where I sat munching green apples, and 
said, — 

“ The gen’l’men ready now ; — I — ” 

I took her hand and proceeded to the apple tree 
with great dignity. 

Prince John took the stand. 

Miss Theodora,” he began, and the boys strug- 
gled to retain their gravity. 

“ Miss Theodora, I have been chosen speaker for 
the firm, and am instructed to say, that after due de- 
liberation and debate upon the question in hand, said 
firm, plainly perceiving the -damage done your hand 
by hole-drilling, and also conscious that the masculine 
portion of the firm is in excess of the feminine, said 
males are ready to acknowledge the justice of your 
claims, and‘do now request a statement of what you 
may consider due you for past labor.” 

Prince John sat down, amid a burst of applause, 
during which Frantztony shied an apple at Albert’s 
left ear, and Traunty, creeping up behind the late 
speaker, put her arms around his neck and kissed bini 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


175 

on the cheek. Prince John drew the child to his 
knee, and I took the stand. 

“ Gentlemen and Partners, — Fully appreciating the 
honor of this firm, when it once has its duty pointed 
out [at which they winced a little] I will proceed to 
make what I consider a demand adequate to the 
amount of labor done.” “Hear, hear,” cried the 
audience. 

“ From Albert I require an anchor, finished in his 
besf style ; the material, rose-colored mussel shell. 
Marmaduke, who is skilled in carving hearts [here 
Albert nudged Doc] will perceive it his duty imme- 
diately to finish for me the purple one he now has on 
hand. Prince John, most able speaker, ol you I re- 
quire a cross in milk white mussel, polished according 
to your well-known skill. Doc will give me a ring in 
pearl color from his collection, which he considers 
next best to the one he gave Sue Vanderbilt last 
week. These demands acceded to, and I still remain 
in the firm ; refused, and I offer my skill and services 
to the highest bidder, and set up as a competitor !” 

“ Jerusalem ! ” said Doc, “ she goes it strong.” 

“ Honored sirs, allow me to retire.” 

The firm went into consultation of the whole, and 
inside two minutes resumed its seat, and Prince John 
arose. 

“ Miss Theodora, I am instructed by my honor- 
able committee to say that we do, as a firm, surrender 


176 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


unconditionally to you as plaintiff ; and, do further- 
more acknowledge the injustice heretofore done you, 
requesting to retain you as a'partner in the firm, with 
an equal share of the profits and not the lion’s share 
of the labor, as heretofore demanded. Will you be 
kind enough to signify your acceptance ?” 

Being overcome, utterly, by this speech of Prince 
John’s, I arose and bowed, and the firm shook hands 
all round, during, which exercise Frantztony assisted 
Traunty Nautz into the great brick oven, out of which 
old Speck had just issued, with a cackling announce- 
ment of fresh eggs for breakfast. 

In after years, Prince John was admitted to the 
Bar ; but although I had not the pleasure and good 
fortune to hear his “ maiden speech,” I am most pro- 
foundly convinced that it could not have impressed 
me more favorably with his latent ability than did 
those speeches made under the great apple tree, with 
three boys and three girls for audience. 

Dear Prince John ; long before he reached the 
height to which his ambition urged, the profession 
lost what might have been a leading star. His career 
was ended by an awful catastrophe, and the beautiful 
heacj, with its crown of nut-brown curls, lay upon the 
satin pillow, with one of the old, beauteous smiles 
transfiguring the soulful face, and Prince John had 
withdrawn from the firm. 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


177 


CHAPTER XXL 

I NOW beg my reader to take with me a flying leap 
over an interval of several years ; in order that I may 
draw my history to its gradual and natural close ; 
during which years, no important charge had occurred 
in the Nautz Eamily. 

The New Baby had grown and progressed so 
rapidly that she had already learned to spelh rabbit — ” 
giving two additional “ b s ” for every rabbit added, 
(according to the instructions of Doc), thus — “ rabb- 
bbits.’^ 

Traunty Nautz was attending a private school, 
taught by a shrly little Englishman and his wife ; and 
before papa and mamma were aware of the small tor- 
tures to which they subjected their pupils, the child 
had fallen into a chronic state of fear of disobeying 
some one of his legion rules and orders,- and had be- 
come so nervous from endeavoring to look at the sun 
with naked eyes at noon-day, and trying to keep her 
toes upon the line which he chalked upon the floor, 
that when one day she dropped her Bible and received 
a smart stroke across her poor little hands, she never 


iyg THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 

stopped for Bible or bonnet, but darted out of the 
door and ran away home like a flash. 

Then when the heads of the family began to ques- 
tion the childy they found this mite had been study- 
ing “ hygiene,” and “ philoso{)hy,” under that inquisi- 
tor’s instruction ; without the remotest idea of what it 
was all about ; save that she was told, that if she 
would go down the cistern on a cloudless day, and 
look up, she could see the stars. 

Dreading the hour when he should demand how 
many had tried the experiment, Traunty watched her 
chance, lifted the cistern lid, pushed Doc’s ladder 
down, and descended. Mamma coming to the door, 
saw the lid and shrieked, whereupon, Traunty called 
up, that she was “ lookin’ for stars.’’ 

The result, after investigation, was, that the third 
Miss Nautz was removed from private school. 

Frantztony had grown faultless. Doc, had de- 
veloped into a handsome, manly fellow, in whom I 
held much stock, and took much pride. 

First in his class to bear off the honors and medals 

i 

when the time for graduation came, as a mark of 
peculiar distinction, he was chosen to write and deliver 
the Latin valedictory to his class mates. 

Never did my heart swell with such an overwhelm- 
ing burst of pride, as on the night when we sat in that 
crowded hall, and heard the beautiful, liquid words roll 
from Doc’s lips. 


THE NA UTZ FAMTL K 


179 

Sue Vanderbilt sat beside me, with the veritable 
shell ring on her finger which Doc had fashioned 
years before. I watched her keenly, that night. 
Presently, I leaned over and asked, — 

‘‘ Sue, don’t you wish he was your brother } ” 

And Sue’s face grew pink as the buds at her throat, 
when she answered, — 

“ You ought to be proud of him, Theodora ! ” 

“ Ha, ha ! young woman, you waive the question,” 
I said to myself, and then I determined that Doc 
might count on me, to do him service with his “ Queen- 
lily and rosebud in one.” How I did, will follow here- 
after. The old relations between Doc and myself, 
had strengthened with the passing years. 

The coolness with which I invaded his boy’s sanc- 
tuary and walked off with his specimens, books, and 
cherished possessions, spoke volumes as to my place 
within his boy’s heart. Once, I remember seeing 
there a dainty rubber comb of peculiar make, and 
without any fixed idea of what I should ever do with 
it, I took possession at once. As a matter of course, 
finding it gone, he came to me, at once, as I expected. 
“ Nautz-Nautz ! ” 

“ Well, old boy ! ” 

Have you seen my comb ? ” 

“ Yes.*” 

“ Where did you see it ? ” 

“ In your room.” 


1 8o the na utz famil f. 

It isn’t there now.” 

What is the use of telling me what I know 
already 'i ” 

Well, then, Dick, where is it ? ” 

“ I have it.” 

You haven’t a moustache to comb.” 

“ No more you, except thirteen hairs ; but I 
mean to marry a man some day, and he is to have red 
hair ; yes, sir, red hair, and blue eyes, and a mous- 
tache, and he’ll need that comb.” 

“ Keep the old thing.” 

And to this day I have it. 

Papa, reasoning no doubt from his own good boy- 
hood, had the impression that all boys were born with 
a predilection for becoming tanners ; and, after educa- 
ting Doc until he could have coped successfully with 
any of the learned professors, began to shape him into 
such a tanner as would fill and satisfy his own heart. 
Papa’s one idea was “ patents,” and I think he ex- 
pected, after perfecting his ideal tanner in Doc, to 
get a patent upon him ; but in this he was disappoint- 
ed, for Doc persistently failed to do anything, except 
to become sick at his stomach, and have vertigo 
whenever set to work upon hides. Now, my sym- 
pathy was divided in this case. I felt sorry for papa, 
seeing he had over-estimated the advantages of educa- 
tion in the ideal tanner, since Doc’s failure proved, to 


THE NA UTZ TAMIL K 1 8 1 

a certainty, that the raw and non-refined material 
would have served his purpose better. 

Doc, I could not blame, having even now an in- 
clination to sea-sickness myself whenever I come 
within a mile’s radius of a tanyard ; therefore, when 
about this time the “ gold fever ” broke out, and the 
most wonderful and extravagant stories came daily to 
our ears from the Pike’s Peak diggings, I was as much 
imbued with the idea as Doc, when he declared his 
intention — if papa was willing — of seeking his fortune 
among the diggers. Papa refused to listen at first ; 
but Doc kept bringing in fresh evidence daily, until 
papa’s and mamma’s combined forces and arguments 
were weakened and almost destroyed, and a reluctant 
acquiescence was made to his plans. 

Aunt Peggy immediately unearthed the old hair- 
trunk which mamma had taken on her wedding trip, 
had it furbished up, and we all set to work to fill it 
with, the most useless and ridiculous articles. 

Every time Frantztony and myself would finish a 
pincushion or a housewife, some one would bring us 
a new pattern, and we would make another. I think 
if Doc hadn’t finally shut that trunk and carried the 
key, he could have supplied Pike’s Peak and all other 
diggings with housewives and pincushions. 

Then the day came for him to start, and we all 
cried as if we were burying him, and mamma hung on 
his neck and sobbed ; 


i 82 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


** Now, Doc, don’t let your shirts go without but- 
tons/’ 

And, Master Doc, remember the black patent 
thread is in the left-hand corner of the right-hand 
box,” added Aunt Peggy. 

And, Doc, don’t forget to read the tract I gave 
you,’’ said Frantztony. 

Nor to smell my flowers,” put in Traunty. 

“ Nor to bring me a nugget,” I said. 

“ And abstain from liquor and evil companions,” 
finished papa, and Doc was gone. 

One night, about three weeks from the time of 
Doctor’s departure for the gold regions, the daughter 
of our next neighbor and myself sat in our cosy sit- 
ting-room alone. 

Neal was busy at some new-fangled tatting, which 
I had been endeavoring to teach her to make, but 
giving up finally, 1 went to scanning my next day’s 
^neid in deep sonorous tones, imitating the profess- 
or. I had just reached, — 

Et nunc | Pristis | bit ; nunc | victam | praeterit 1 ingens | 

Centau | rus; nunc | una am | bae junc | tisque fe [ runter | 

Fronti | bus, et | longa sul | cant vada | salsa ca ] rina | 

when there -was a ring at the bell which made us leap 
from our chairs, while the echoes went reverberating 
through the house, we looked at the dock,— after 
nine — no one called at that hour, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


*83 

Mamma and Frances had gone to prayer-meeting 
and taken the front door key, in case I should feel 
like retiring. 

“ What shall we do } ” we asked each other, 
ril tell you,” said Neal, “ I’ll go out the side pas- 
sage and see who it is.” 

In a moment a shriek rent the air, and Neal burst 
into the room screaming, — 

It’s a ghost, I saw it ! ” 

Bah ! come on, we’ll go together, ghosts don’t 
often ring door bells.” 

Then we both went around the house, peered into 
the darkness, and sure enough, there stood some- 
thing, dead white and motionless, on the front step. 

I called to it, but it made no answer, then as our 
eyes became accustomed to the darkness, we saw the 
shape of a man* and fled precipitately ; whereupon he 
followed : on we rushed, pell mell, and burst all to- 
gether into the sitting-room, when whom should the 
friendly light discover but Doc ! 

Why, it’s the Probable Son,” I cried to Neal, who 
stood shivering with her hands over her eyes. 

Thereupon, I pulled off my best ring with three 
rubies in it, which he always coveted, squeezed it on 
his little finger and fell upon his neck and wept, in 
true Bible style. 

Neal uncovered her eyes and looked. 

“ Where’s the ghost ? ” she asked. 


184 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY, 


By this time I was aware that I had been snowing 
myself unusually soft ; ” therefore I straightened up 
and pointed to the corner back of the door, where 
stood Doc’s cherished Enfield rifle encased in white 
canvas. 

Then Doc laughed, and called us ^ muffs,’ and I 
danced round him, and examined his pockets, expect- 
ing to find them chuckful of nuggets — but when I 
didn’t, I asked if he had left them with papa’s banker. 

At this Doc winced, and said he had been “ Awful 
sick with fever, didn’t think he was going to live, let 
alone get home.” 

Then I coddled and cuddled him, but coming 
around again to the money question, Doc owned, 
with a grimace, that he “ Hadn’t a red.” 

This burst the bubble of my expectations, and after 
listening to an account of his travels and proceedings, 
from the time of his leaving home, in company with 
Mamma’s hair wedding trunk ; up to his present ap- 
pearance, pale, haggard, travel-worn, a,nd penniless, I 
broke out with, — 

Well, on the whole. I’m glad I didn’t go ! ” 

“ Go where ? ” 

“To Pike’s Peak.” 

Doc showed the whites of his eyes and whis- 
pered, — 

“ Dick, you didn’t mean to come out there f ” 

“ Of course I did, I meant to run away, if they 


THE NA UTZ FA MIL Y. 185 

wouldn’t let me go peaceably, and come out to you ; 
and bring you another housewife and a pincushion, 
and, and — lots of things, and be your housekeeper.” 

‘‘Whew! girls are muffs.” 

“ Yes ; of course I mean, just as soon as you wrote 
to me, confidentially, that you had your house built 
and furnished, — and a first-class cook engaged.” 

•‘ Julius Caesar I ” said Doc. 

“ And I meant to bring “ The Light of Serail,” 
and your favorite “ Horse Head,” and the “ Boa Con- 
strictor,” which says at the bottom, “ this is a snake,” 
— to hang in the spare bedroom.” 

“ What an egregrious muff,” sneered Doc. I pro- 
ceeded. 

What did I care, for home without a brother, or 
for Darwin, or Huxley, 6r any of those fellows, when 
the “ apple of my eye ’ was eating his dinner alone 
in a far country.” 

“ I say Dick — ” 

I paid no heed, — “ What did I care for the Darwin- 
ian Theory, or for Paradise Lost, or the Inferno, or 
any of those things, when Christopher Columbus, had 
discovered a new continent, on which I was born, and 
which my only brother was industriously turning up 
with his pickaxe and spade, to sort out the gold from 
the earth ! ” 

“ Let me say something, Dick, dear.” 

“ Yes, directly; but just let me know whatever put 


i86 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


it into your head, to think that I meant to stay at 
home and live on Greek verbs and Latin roots, while 
you lived like a prince, on ham, and jerked beef, and 
corn dodger ? ” 

A faint flush stole over Doc’s face, and he said, — 

“ Dick, it wouldn’t have been the place for you, out 
there.” 

“ I’d like to know why ; ain’t we of the same blood ? ’’ 

“ Oh yes, but the men swear and gamble and fight.” 

“ I like those things if they’re manly T 

“ And you couldn’t have new bonnets, or kid gloves> 
or — things ! ” 

''Yes I could ; I had them all ready. Didn’t I get 
a bran-new skirt made with ten yards of muslin in it, 
tucked to the waist, to wear under my white tarlatan, 
evenings, and lace bows on ftiy shoes, and new rats 
for my hair, and everything ; and here you have gone 
and cheated me at last.” 

"Now, Sis,” said Doc coaxingly," I’ll tell you some- 
thing, \iyou won’t tell anybody.” 

"All right.” 

" There isn’t twenty-five cents, worth of gold in al 
Pike’s Peak!” 

I asked him to show it to me. 

" Show you what ” 

" The twenty-five cents worth of gold.” 

Doc’s face grew beety, and he said with a sort of 
reluctant alacrity, — 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


187 


“ Sis, ril take it all back.” 

“ What the gold } You didn’t give it to me yet ! ” 
No, I mean what I said about yoM, yoti aren't a 
mnff!'' 

No more I thought I was. But see here. Doc.’’ 

“ Well.” 

Whittle from you, and you’ll never get cut.” 

And I sauntered away, whistling “ Catch a weasel 
asleep.” 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


lS8 


CHAPTER XXIL 

After the failure of the Pike’s Peak expedition, I 
think Doc first became aware of what a disappoint- 
ment it must have been to dear papa, when his pros- 
pective Ideal Tanner •’ refused to be patented ; and, \ 
evidently for the purpose of making such amends as 
were possible, he at once began to take a course in 
double and single entry at the Mercantile College, in 
order to take charge of papa’s books, and by the beauty 
of his balance sheet, ameliorate, as much as possible, 
his abortive attempt at becoming the Ideal Tanner. 

In due time, he again bore off college honors with 
his diploma, and forthwith set to work at the desk. 

Although Doc worked assiduously, to my keen 
eyes, he was altered, in some indefinable, intangible 
way, and it did not take long to persuade myself that 
it was my bounden duty to discover the primal cause 
of this alteration. 

I had a hazy idea that, in some way. Sue Vander- 
bilt was connected with the change ; but not being in 
the least certain, determined to investigate matters. 

Now, some months before, when Doc had begun to 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


189 

think of Pike’s Peak, it entered my head to probe Sue 
a little, just to see whether I had read the face of 
this Queen-Lily aright, on Commencement night. 
One day, I sauntered to school, leisurely translating 
my Horace on the way. As I passed Sue’s yard, the 
snipping of scissors roused me from my Bacchanalian 
dream, and looking up, there, on the other side of the 
fence, stood Sue, shears in hand, clipping the dead 
roses from a bush. 

Sue and I reflected nods and glances. Mine must 
have been keen, or else the roses reflected upward, 
for her cheeks were pink in a moment. 

I laid my Horace deliberately on the gate post, 
placed my hands on two of the pickets, settled my 
chin upon them, and said, — 

“ Sue Vanderbilt, be thankful that you have no 
brother ! ” 

Theodora ! ” she exclaimed, growing pink again. 

“ Susanna Vanderbilt, take my word for it, they are 
a great botheration and vexation of spirit, and it takes 
a woman of great strength of character to live through 
the tribulations they hatch up for affectionate sis- 
ters.” 

“What has yours been doing.?” she asked with 
hesitation. 

“ He hasn’t done anything yet.” 

“ May I ask what he contemplates doing then ? ” 

“ Well, yes, I suppose it is immaterial to you,” — 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


196 

at this I was almost certain Sue winced — ‘‘ but being a 
friend, I’ll tell you ; he is going to Pike’s Peak ! ” 

For a certainty I was right. 

My Queen Lily grew crimson, then white, and went 
to snipping of buds and roses indiscriminately. 

Without further reference to the subject, I said, 
nodding toward a flower bed, — 

“ Sue, please cut me that spray of heliotrope and 
there’s a single purple pansy, that too, if you will.” 

And Sue’s scissors clipped the flowers and started 
on towards the rose tree, but I exclaimed, — 

“No more, that is all I want, they are Doc’s favor- 
ite flowers — I will give them to him from you } ” 
Sue’s lip quivered a little, but she did not speak. 

“ They may be the last you will ever send him,” — 
I said gravely, and then she answered, — 

“Yes, please with my compliments and good 
wishes.” 

Then I took up my Horace, and went on to where 
the Professor sat on the doorsteps, with the heads of 
my four girl chums peeping over his shoulders, whilst 
he held a dog’s-eared Homer and read with silvery 
voice the beauteous story. 

“ Here comes my laggard Greek,” he said, as I 
swung the great iron gate to, with a clang ; and then, 
I sat down at his feet, and the liquid words rolled on, 
and presently Sue and Pike’s Peak and the Bacchana- 
lian dream, were things forgotten, and I was borne 


THE HAUTZ FAMILY, 


191 


along by the passionate tide of the tale, until I beheld 
the walls of Troy^upon which most beauteous Helen 
stood and looked down upon the combat between Mene- 
laus and her lover, Paris. And when he, worsted, 
was on the point of being dragged into the Grecian 
lines, Venus descended in a cloud, and snatching him 
away bore him to his own apartment, then calling 
Helen from the walls, she gave the lovers to each 
other. 

So far the story ran, we, the Professor’s “five 
Greeks,” leaning close to catch the beauteous intona- 
tion from our beloved teacher’s lips ; and then, the 
great bell clanged, and when we all arose, the Profes- 
sor leaned over to inhale the fragrance from my helio- 
trope and pansy and I whispered, — “Professor John, 
I wish I could give you these ; but Sue Vanderbilt 
sent them to Doc ; you know he leaves in a week or 
two V 

Then the Professor’s smile gave me to know that 
he understood, while he whispered back, — 

“ Sue chose well if she picked them with any regard 
for their language.” 

“ I helped her at that — a little,” I replied. 

And the Professor shook his finger at me, then laid 
it upon his lips, which action I interpreted to mean 
that if I wished to assist Doc and Sue Vanderbilt in 
their love making, I must be “ wise as a serpent and 
harmless as a dove.” 


192 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


When I gave that tiny bouquet to Doc, at noon, I 
found there was no need whatever of any hint as 
to “language,’’ nor yet any explanation necessary 
outside of the information that it came from the Queen 
Lily ; since he immediately carried it to his room, 
and embalmed it between the leaves of Tennyson’s 
Maud, and sent her in return a spray of forget-me- 
not. 

After Doc’s return from the gold diggingevery thing, 
began to change ; he left off all the old time, boyish 
ways ; cultivated his mustache, became so punctilious 
in his dress, that he winced in a manly way, if I 
rumpled his collar when I kissed him ; and even went 
so far as to request that the time honored name of 
“ Doctor ” should be laid on the shelf, and his Christian 
name of St. Jerome substituted. At this, I bristled, 
drew myself up, and remarked, — - 

“ Mr. De Graff, since you insist upon calling me 
Nantz-Nautz, you have probably forgotten that my 
Christian name is Theodora ! More than that, I 
am a young woman measuring five feet with my boots 
on ; will be eighteen next February, and graduate in 
June.” Doc caught his breath, and exclaimed, — 
“Jupiter Ammon ! ” 

“ I would just like to know what has come over this 
household,” I went on. “Everybody is changed 
somehow, ever since Frantztony left school and made 
that last visit to Hillsboro, she is altered; she’s just 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


193 


an animated bundle of dignity, and when I made a 
most witty pun on that young nurseryman’s name — 
who came down to see her last week — she actually 
got up and left the room, and mamma and Aunt 
Peggy both scolded me, and said, — “ When my time 
came, I would understand these things ; ” — but I am 
of the opinion that my time will never come, or rather 

has come, and gone.” This last I added, in a 

whisper, with my head on Doc’s shoulder. 

He held me close for a moment, this brother who 
had stood by me through every grief and happiness of 
my life ; who had given me at all times the very best, 
out of his treasury of love and knowledge, and had 
suffered me to walk with familiar feet through the 
inmost sanctuary of his thoughts, — drew me close as 
though he knew .the same invisible thread bound our 
two hearts ; then holding me off at arms’ length, said, 
while the great brown eyes grew wistful and 
tender, — 

^'Little sister, something is wrong, let me help 
you ! ” 

I shook my head — “ No one can help me, Docie.” 

Let me try.” 

“ Listen, Doc,” I said — '' I’m not an Amazon } ” 

‘‘Well — ” answered he, surveying me critically. 
Well — not ex — actly ! ” 

“ Hence, by the law of opposites, I hate little men.” 

“ Precisely.” 


194 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“ But by all the powers, I say to you sclemnly, that 
every bone and fibre of my body, tells me I shall 
marry a little man.” 

‘‘ Remarkable bones ! I say, sis, could you by any 
possibility transfer their ownership to a fellow; to 
serve as a sort of philosopher’s stone ; a magnet, you 
know : I mean, of course, after you are through with 
them.” 

Mr. De Graff, they are already bespoken for a 
better end ! ” 

By whom > ” 

“ A scientific man.” 

‘‘ Then, like Macawber, I shall be compelled to 
wait for ‘ something else to turn up.’ ” 

Waiting will be good for you, you irreverent 
monkey.” 

“ But the ‘ little man ’ ; have the bones pointed out 
which one it shall be — Bullet Head, Carroty Head, or 
Woggle Head .^ ” 

“ The fates forfend ! ” 

There must have been something more than fun or 
protest, in my voice ; for Doc held me off and looked 
at me anxiously, then drew me close and said, — “ Theo- 
dora, tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth.” 

If you promise the same,” I replied. 

Here came a recess for labial salutations, during 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


195 

which, I collected my forces and* decided to make a 
clear statement. 

“You know Hercules, Doc } ” 

“ Not intimately,” answered he, perplexed. 

“ Well, then, in other words, meaning the same^ 
you remember Seaton Van Wycke .? ” 

“ The light begins to dawn,” said Doc. 

“ Tell me the color of my eyes.” 

“ Brown, if I am a judge.” 

“ I thought so. Do you see anything in them ^ ” 

“ Two imps ! ” 

“The reflections of yourself. What color are 
Hercules’ ” 

“ Hazel, by Jupiter; did you ever see anything in 
them ! ” 

“Yes, two witches.” 

“ When you were looking into them ” 

“ Well yes.” 

“And what came of it ^ ” 

“ The imps and the witches quarrelled. ’ 

“ It is all clear now,” said Doc. 

“ And I’ll give you a piece of advice gratis. Doc.” 

“ ‘ Age cum vi expeditione precede.’ — Never fall 
in love with a man whose eyes are the color of your 
own,” I replied to this invitation, and Doc broke out 
with — “ Ha, ha, I never intend to ! ” A little vexed 
at his treating this solemn advice of mine with such 
lightness, I determined to have my revenge, and 


196 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


drawing myself up, produced from my pocket, a folded 
paper, slowly opened it and remarked, — 

“ St. Jerome De Graff, I have here something which 
I desire to read to you, and earnestly desire your 
closest attention. It is a poem, entitled — “ St. John’s 
Eve ! ” Here Doc made a dash for the paper, but I 
had foreseen that, and was ready, — “ No, sir, you dare 
not take it, you have been the first to break our pledge ; 
You have been about this thing without my knowledge ; 
did you suppose that because your door was closed, I 
didn’t know what you were up to.? Never make the 
grate your waste basket for spoiled manuscripts, nor 
expect that the one long ray of light which falls through 
your key hole, over the hall and into my room, will 
not betray you to your sister. And now, for punish- 
ment, you shall hear your own poem and then explain 
it.” 

Doc tried to beg off, but I was incorrigible, there- 
fore he sank into a chair, put his hands over his face 
and listened whilst I read, — 

ST. JOHN’S EVE. 

Poets tell of a magical flower. 

Love’s vermeil lips hath prest, 

Which silently gathered , at midnight hour, 

When the world is lapped in rest 
’Neath the pillow laid 
Will bring man or maid, 

Dreams of the one loved best, 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


In the faded season of youth so fair, . 

I gathered the little flower, 

When the arrowy moonbeams shot thro’ the air, 

At St. John’s Eve’s chosen hour. ^ 

No word I spoke as I culled the spray,— 

No sound I made as I turned away, — 

A dewdrop shone in each blossom’s heart, 

More fair than the gems 
Of diadems 

Worn by princes and fashioned by art. 

The spell was potent : scarce had sleep 
Quite o’ermastered my wakeful eyes 
Than I wake in a valley cool and deep, 

’Neath other and fairer skies. • 

No earthly vale, the haunt of unrest, — 

’Twas a taintless Eden — strife nor sin 
Could that shade-bound valley enter ia 
Like the fabled “ Islands of the Blest,” 

Its golden sun aye shone with tempered heat ; 

On leafy cliffs the balmy breezes beat 
In cool refreshing waves of fragrant air. — 

Love could have found no home more pure and fair. 

But lovely vale and lucent skies 
Faded away from me quite 
When bent above me /ierv\o\tt eyes. 

Filled with a vague and sweet surprise 
Like stars on a moonless night. 

The smile that lit her sunny face 
Was born of innocence and grace, 

And though, as yet, no word she spake. 

My eyes her thoughts could well divine ; 

But when upon my hearing broke, 

In rippling music “ I am thine,” 

I clasped the dear one to my heart, 

Saying, “ We twain will never part.” 

^Twas but a dream! My wandering feet have long, 
Full long and vainly, sought the happy shore 
Of that sweet valley. In the crush and throng 
Of battling life I’ve seen forevermore 


198 THE NAUTZ FAMILY. ' 

A bright young face, the angel of my dreams ! 

And still I seek ; oh, will the search be vain ? 

'Lo ! as I wander by the babbling streams, 

In dreamful mood, I seem to hear again 

The tender voice that has so mastered me. 

Dearest, ‘God guard thee, wheresoe’er thou be. 

As I finished, Doc looked up as though he thought 
release had come ; but I scattered this delusion by 
saying,— 

“ St. Jerome De Graff, will you be kind enough to 
tell me what \.\\^ first lines of this last stanza mean } 

“ Just what they say,” he answered, almost inaudi- 
bly. 

“ Did I ever hear such nonsense ; what reason have 
you for believing it V 

“ Miss Vanderbilt has another admirer than my- 
self.” 

“ Have you given her cause to believe that you are 
her lover in earnest ^ ” 

“ I have thought so, since I meant to, most em- 
phatically.” 

“ Then, what reason have you for not believing 
your advances, acceptable "I ” 

“ She allows that other man to call upon her.” - 

“ /;/-deed ! Now, St. Jerome, I gave you credit 
for more discernment than this. Society-men them- 
selves lay down a certain code of laws, by which 
women are to govern themselves with regard to men ; 
let any one of us overstep, by a hair’s breadth, these 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY 


too 

shades of propriety, and we suffer at once in your 
esteem. Take my word for it, the idea of marrying 
that ‘ blonde ’ never entered Sue’s golden hea j. 
‘ Faint heart never won faire ladye,’ ajid, St. Jerome, 
if you lose this ‘ Queen Lily,’ it will ho, your own 
fanjty ' , - 

Here I slid out of tbe room, and left Doc to his 
-meditations. . ' • 

The events which .draw my history to a close will 
prove that . my words were not without their effect. 


j 




? . 


; Ua< i-U 


• i/u> or . i ! / ’ ;r.' : 


200 


THE HAUTZ FAMILY, 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

My Baby,’’ Traunty Nautz, who was never “more 
than half-born into the world, grew but slowly, physi- 
cally ; but, as if to make up for the tardiness of her 
bodily growth, she developed mentally and spiritually 
in an inverse ratio. 

In truth, I always believed she must have left 
Heaven with reluctance, when the angels swung her 
basket free, and even pictured her in my mind as 
catching and holding to their floating robes ! ]\ly 
heart went out with a pitying tenderness toward this 
fragile child, because she was so utterly ethereal and 
unearthly. 

“ Forever star-gazing,” as Doc declared, “ with her 
feet upon the earth,” and consequently getting into 
mischief, or stumbling over something, or some one. 

She did the most absurd and unlooked-for things, 
with an air of naive complaisance and timid assur- 
ance ; once, I remember, she was spending the night 
with dear, good Aunt Patty. 

Now, Aunt Patty had an only daughter, the apple 
of her eye, and whom she endeavored to restrict and 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


201 


curb beyond that high-strung young woman’s desire 
or need. 

Miss Elizabeth was in the parlor, accompanying the 
exquisite Adolphus Brown upon the piano, in snatches 
from the latest operas. i 

Aunt Patty was uneasy. Adolphus was well 
enough, but she had no desire to claim him as her 
son-in-law. She also held the firm belief that — 

Early to bed, and early to rise. 

Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. 

It was past nine o’clock. She looked about for 
means to give Mr. Brown a gentle reminder. There 
sat Traunty, in Uncle Jacob’s great arm-chair, nod- 
ding over a picture book. 

“ Hortensia,” said Aunt Patty, “ go into the parlor 
and tell Elizabeth to play for you.” 

Traunty slid out of her chair, opened the door 
gently, and caught Adolphus in the middle of a ten- 
der speech. Miss Elizabeth told her to run out, but 
Traunty, having a distinct idea that she had been sent 
for a purpose, shook her head and asked for a song. 
So they sang a duet, after which the door was opened, 
and Traunty politely invited to retire. 

Then, Aunt Patty looked annoyed, and laid a fresh 
plan ; and Traunty returned to the parlor bearing a 
china basket running over with “ Bartletts.’’ The 
pears were accepted, time given to Traunty to eat 
hers, and again she was invited out. 


202 


THE HAUTZ FAMILY, 


Aunt Patty was alarmed. 

“ Hortensia,” she said, “ go in again and ask Eliza- 
beth if they don’t need more coal, it is growing chilly, 
and if she sends you out, tell her / said you were 
to stay in^ ” 

Traunty executed this commission with her usual 
solemnity, and being answered in the negative, took 
a seat in the corner of the sofa ; Elizabeth endeavored 
to persuade her that she ought to be in bed, but 
Traunty shook her head and nodded on ; finally she 
went fast asleep and dropped off the sofa, whereupon 
Mr. Brown took the hint and arose, when Traunty 
sprang to her feet, rushed into the sitting room and 
cried before she had closed the door, — “ He’s going. 
Aunt Patty ! ” 

And Mr. Brown refused to be appeased, and never 
became Aunt Patty’s son-in-law. 

The New Baby, or Margery Nautz, had the growth 
of the family ; she shot up like mushroom over night, 
and poor mamma andAunt Peggy were forever letting 
down her skirts or taking out the hems of her dresses; 
and the taller she got, the more slender she grew, the 
more attention and admiration she attracted, until 
Traunty and I seriously contemplated doing some- 
thing to stop her growth, as the beggars in London 
do. But after looking up receipts, we found a serious 
obstacle in the road — we should have begun the pro- 
'ess in infancy. We were, therefore, qompelled to 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


203 

abandon the project, and decided to let her grow, and 
see how tall she would get : if the public has any curi- 
osity, on this head, we will see to it that photographs 
are at once struck off by the million, for its satisfsc- 
tion. Suffice it to say, — “ The coming man,” — who 
has made his appearance — declares she is not a hair’s 
breadth to tall,” therefore if he is content, we may as 
well let it pass. 

Frantztony never detiorated. 

The young nurseryman, made stated trips, when- 
ever the moon was full. I have no philosophy that 
will serve to explain the reason of this, unless it be 
that insane persons are always worse during that per- 
iod ; yet, be it known, I do not wish it understood, 
that I accept this as an explanation for his choosing 
this particular time. It may have been, that he looked 
best by moonlight, or that Frantztony did, for all I 
know ; I am only vividly conscious of this one fact, 
viz., that her love making, from the first, ran inversely 
to mine. In proportion as Hercules and I got further 
apart, she and the young nurseryman came together 
and set their thoughts and desires drifting down the 
same stream. 

Dear old Aunt Peggy, when I used to tell her with 
such complacent zest of the Ideal Man I meant to 
love and. marry — if I ever married at all — woulcj look 
sadly over her spectacles, shake her head and say, — 


204 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


“ Miss The’dora, you must break an egg before you 
can be sure that it is good.” 

And I used to snap my fingers defiantly, and laugh 
in derision at the bare suggestion of the second Miss 
Nautz being disappointed in the Ideal Man! 

But I have lived long enough to know that the Ideal 
jMan, was a creation of my own brain, and to be a little 
less certain whether the brown imps/’ and the “ hazel 
witches ” could have attracted without affinity, there- 
fore, more patiently and humbly, than in those near- 
away days, I bide my time. 

As for Doc, I left him ruminating over his own 
poem, and the suggestions my remarks might have 
raised. 

He was then at the hopeless period, with the mer- 
cury at zero. 

The next Sabbath as we came out of church, a 
slight shower coming up, we were forced to remain 
in the vestibule. I could see Sue’s blue plume nod- 
ding against her golden -locks, between the heads of 
the crowd, and saw also that Doc had edged himself 
in to where she stood. Presently the rain was over. 
Sue gathered up her dainty azure robe and drifted 
down the steps ; when we reached her gate, as Doc 
opened it, I noticed that by some sleight of hand, his 
buttonhole bouquet was fastened on her ivory pin, 
whilst he wore a spray of heliotrope. 


THE NAUrZ FAMILY. 


205 


We shut her in, and walked on in silence, for a mo- 
ment ; then I asked Doc if he was a prestidigitateiir, 
• — but he only smiled and shook his head, while he 
caressed the heliotrope ; and concluding from present 
indications, that he had reached the second or Melan- 
cholic period, with the barometer rising, I deemed it 
discreet to say nothing farther. 

A few nights afterward — I learned later — he called 
upon the Queen- Lily, found the blonde before him, 
and took a hasty resolve “ to sit him out.” 

The same idea, seemed to have entered the blond’s 
head in the same moment of time ; for the hours 
passed, and he remained ; but wily Sue veered about, 
turned her sunny side toward Doc, and the chilly one 
toward the blonde, and finally Doc had the floor, and 
the blonde was gone, and only waiting to whisper two 
or three tender sentences for her to dream upon, he 
came home, — having reached the hopeful period, 
with the barometer indicating fair weather. 

After that. Doc learned the language of all the 
flowers on the globe, and such a battery of sweet 
things as he flung at Sue, must have won a more re- 
luctant woman than the Queen-Lily. Suffice it to 
say, that it was not long before Doc burst into my 
room, one night, where I sat with my elbows on the 
stand and my head in my hands, poring over my mor- 
row’s lesson, in the third book of the Iliad. 

He closed the book, with a bang, snatched me off 


2o6 


THE NAUTZ FAMILY. 


my chair, and waltzed me about the room until we 
were both out of breath. 

When we finally stopped, and I could fairly scan 
his face, I cried at once, — 

“ Ha! ha! St. Jerome De Graff, make your obeis- 
ance ; you are at the last and ecstatic period ; didn’t 
I prophecy all this, and now aren’t you glad you took 
my advice ? ” 

And she is a wingless angel, and the barometer 
foretells cloudless days, and endless floods of sun- 
shine ! ” 

And Doc kissed me, and sat me down, and rushed 
across the hall to his own room ; and the one ray of 
light fell through the keyhole, until the morning 
showed gray. 

And I sat alone with Homer. 


THE -NA UTZ TAMIL K 


207 


CONCLUSION ! 

Long since Frantztony was made happy by the 
young nurseryman ; and has now a nursery of 
choice slips, which bid fair, with proper pruning and 
training, to perpetuate the Nautz Family. 

Whatever failures the lives of the remaining mem- 
bers of the family may have been, I am thoroughly 
convinced that Frantztony has discovered her pecu- 
liar “ bent ; ” for no other vocation in life could have 
offered such an extensive field for song, as the one 
she has chosen, and which she fills to such perfec- 
tion. 

Does tnere evfer come a time, when I shall be as 
satisfied with myself as I am with her, I shall be 
happy. 

Six years ago. Doc and my Queen-Lily clasped 
hands, and pledged faith to one another ; to-day, the 
violet and hazel eyes, look into each other with an- 
swering love, and I am glad that I had a hand in this 
one “ good work.” 

Once, Aunt Peggy’s daughter, called to her, from 
out of the Land of Nowhere — and with strange fore- 
bodings she left us all ; the brown eyes blind with 


2o8 


THE NA UTZ FAMIL Y. 


tears. She put her chubby hands upon my shoulders, 
looked me in the face and said in trembling tones, — 

“ Miss The’dora, I’m coming back to cook your 
wedding breakfast.” 

And when I shook my head she thrust a great 
lump of the “ Bread of Life ” into my hand, and 
trotted down the garden walk, sobbing. 

A little while, and word came from the mythical 
daughter, saying that dear, old Aunt Peggy — “ slept 
with her fathers.” And, by and hy, papa was “away ” 
— and grandmamma did not tarry long. Mamma, 
Uncle Ulric, and Aunt Dora are “ waiting,” and pres- 
ently the COMING MAN, who has gone away to 
“ strike oil,” will return for the new baby, and hav- 
ing carried her out into the great world, they will set 
up their establishment, hang up their motto and pro- 
ceed to “ Eat, Drink and Be Merry ; ” — and after that 
will be left only Traunty and Nautz Nautz, each hav 
ing her own life-story, for the beautiful voice is stilled, 
and Hercules sojourns in a far country. 

But, if there ever comes a time, when my theory 
proves false, and the brown imps and the hazel 
witches can meet without clashing, the public shall 
be notified of the same. Now we two, Traunty and 
Nautz Nautz, stand hand in hand upon the stage, 
make our acknowledgments, sweep our courtesies and 
retire, unless the audience calls us again before the 
curtain, — Adieu ! 


ENOCH MORGAN’S SONS* 



SQ.'CT-AJEiEJ ^HSTD UTPHIG-TIT T ^T A Ts ro«=t- 

The demands now made by an educated musical public are so 
exacting, that very few piano-forte manufacturers can produce instru- 
ments that will stand the test which merit requires. 

SOHMER & Co. , as manufacturers, rank among this chosen few, 
who are acknowledged to bo makers of standard instruments. In 
these days when many manufacturers urge the low price of their 
wares, rather than their superior quality, as an inducement to pur- 
chase, it may not be amiss to suggest that, in a piano, quality and 
price are too inseparably joined, to expect the one without the other. 

Every piano ought to be judged as to the quality of its tone, its 
touch, and its workmanship ; if any one of these is wanting in excel- 
lence, however good the others may be, the instrument will be imper- 
fect. It is the combination of all tht se qualities in the highest degree 
tliat constitutes the perfect piano, and it is such a combination, as has 
given the SOHMEB its hono rable posit ion with the trade and public. 

Pricesasreasonableasconsistent 
with the Highest Standard. 

MArSUFAGTURERS, 

l49tol55Eastl4tiiSt.,N.Y. 



STANDARD PUBLICATIONS. 


Chas. Dickens’ Complete "Works, 
15 r-2mo, cloth, jrilt, §22.50. 

W. M. Thackei’ay’s Complete 
Works, 11 Vol3., l^mo, cloth, gilt, 
16.50. 

JOHN W. 


Georg-e Eliot’s Complete Works, 
8 Vols,, 12mo, cloth, gilt, §10.00. 
Plutarch’s Lives of nitistrioua 
Men. 3 Vols., 12mo. cloth, gilt, 
§4.50.' 

LOVELL CO., Publishers, 


14 AND 16 Vesbt Stkbkt, New York. 


STANDARD PUBLICATIONS. 


BoUlns’ Ancient History, 4 \ol8., 
limo, cloth, gilt, §6.00. 

Charles Knight’s Popular His- 
tory of England, 8 vols., 12mo, 
top, §12.00. 


Lovell’s Series of Eed Lins 
Poets, 50 Volumes of all the b<.t/ 
works of the world’s CTeat Poeui. 
Tennyson, Shakespere, Milton, Mere- 
dith, Ingelow, Proctor, Scott, Byro.:* 
Dante, «fcc. §1.25 per volume. 


JOHN W, I-OVELL CO., Publisher®, 
i4 AN© 10 VUSNT SXKBBX, NW 





KEYSTOS^E ORGASM. 

from $175 to $125. Acclimatized case. Anti-Shoddy and Anti-Monopoly. Kot all case, 
stops, top and advertisement. WaiTanted for 6 years. Has the Excelsior IS-Stop 
Comtmation, embracing : Diapason, Elute, Melodia-Eorte, Vioiina, Aeoliua, Viola, 
^'Inte-Porte. Celeste, Dnlcet, Echo, Mclodia. Celestina, Octave Coupler, Tremelo, 
oub-Eass, Cello, Grand-Organ Air Brake, Grand-Organ Swell. Two Knee- 
^ops. This is a Walnut case, with Music Balcony, Sliding Desk, Side Handles, &c. 
Dimensions ; Height, 75 inches; Length, 48 inches: Depth, 24 inches. This S-Octave 
Organ, with Stool, Book and Music, vfe will bos and deliver at dock in New Xork, for 
$125. Send try express, prepaid, check, or registered letter to 

^ - DICKINSOIT Si CO., Pianos and Organs, 

19 West nth Street, New York, 


r 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY. 

O-A-T-^ZlO^TTE. 


85. Shandon Bells, by William Black, 20 


86. Monica, by The Duchess .10 

87. Hearc and Science, by Wilkie Col- 

lins 20 

8S. The Golden Calf, by Miss M, E. 

Br addon 20 

80. The Dean’s Daughter, by Mrs, 

Gore 20 

90. Mrs. Geoffrey, by The Duchess.. 20 

91. Pickwick Papers, Part I .20 

Pickwick Papers, Part II 20 


92. Airy Fa ry Lilian, by The Duchess. 20 
91. McLeod of Dare, by Wm. Black. 20 

94. Tempest Tossed, by Tilton, P’tl.20 
Tempest Tossed, by Tilton. P’tII.20 

95. Letters from High Latitudes, by 

Lord Dufferiu 20 

96. Gideon Fleyce. by Henry W. Lucy. 20 

97. India and Ceylon, by E. Haeckle. .20 

98. The Gypsy Queen, by Hugh De 

Normand 20 

99. The Admir<il’.s Ward, by Mrs. 

Alexander 20 

100. Nimport. by E. .L. Bynner, P’t I. ,15 
Nimport, byE. L. Bynner, P’t II. . 15 

101. Harry Holbrooke, by Sir H. Ran- 

dall Roberts 20 

102. Tritons, by E. Lasseter Bynner, 

Parti 15 

Tritons, by E. La.sseter Bynner, 

Part II 15 

103 Let Nothing You Dismay, by Wal- 
ter Besant.' 10 

104. Lady Audley’s Secret, by Miss M, 

I E. Braddon 20 

I 105. Woman’s Place To-Day, by Mrs. 

Lillie Devereux Blake 20 

I 106. Dunallan, by Kennedy, Part I... 15 
I Dunallan, by Kennedy, Part II.. 15 

I 107. Housekeeping and Home-Making, 

by Marion Harland 15 

108. No New Thing, by W. E. Norris.. 2U 

109. The SpoopendykePapers, by Stan- 

1 ley Huntley 20 

110. False Hopes, by Goldwin Smith. .15 

111. Labor and Capital, by Edward 


Kellogg 20 

112. Wanda, by Onida, Part 1 15 

Wanda, by Onida, Part 11 15 

113. Mon- Words About the Bible, by 

Rev. J is. S. Bush 20 

114. Monsie ,r Lecoq, byGaboriau,P’t I 20 
MdnsieurLecoq,byGaboriau,P’t 11.20 

115. An Outline of Irish History, by, 

Justin H. McCarthy .10 

116. The Lerouge Case, by Gaboriau . . 20 

117. Paul Clifford, by Lord Lytton...20 

118. A New Lea.se of Life, by About.. 20 

119. Bourbon Lillies 20 

120. Other Peoples’ Money, by Emilo 

Gaboriau 20 

121. TheLadyof Lyons, by Lord Lytton. 10 

122. Ameline de Bourg 15 


123. A Sea Queen, by W. Clark Russell. 20 

124. The Ladies Lindores, by Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

125. Haunted Heart.‘?,by J, P. Simpson. 10 

126. Loys, Lord Beresford, by The 

Duchess 20 

127. Under Two Flags, by Ouida, P’t 1.20 
Under T wo Flags, by Ouida, P’t II .20 

128., Money, by Lord Lytton .... 10 

129. In Peril of His Life, by Gaboriau. 20 

130. India, by Max Muller 20 

131. Jets and Flashes 20 

132. Moonshine and Marguerite.-^, by 

The Duchess. 10 

133. Mr. Scarborough’s Family, by 

Anthony Trollope, Part 1 15 

Mr. Scarborough’s Family, by 

Anthony Trollope, Part II 15 

131. Arden, by A. Mary F. Roberts... 15 

135. The Tower of Percemont, by 

George Sand 20 

136. Yolande, by Wm. Black 20 

137. Cruel London, by Joseph Hatton. 20 

138. The Gilded Clique, by Gaboriau...2U 

139. Pike County Folks, by E. H. Mott.. 20 

140. Cricket on the Hearth. byDickens . 1 0 

141. Henry Esmond, by Thackeray 20 

142. Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, 

by Wm. Black 20 

143. Denis Duval, by W. M. Thackeray .10 

144. Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles 

Dickens, Part 1 15 

Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles 
Dickens. Part II 15 

145. Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part 1 15 

Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part II 15 

146. White W’ng«. by Wm. Black 20 

147. The Sketch Book, by Irving 90 

148. Catherine, by W. M, Thackeray 10 

149. Janet s Repentance, by Eliot 10 

150. Barnaby Rudge, Dickens Part 1.15 
Barnaby Rudge. Dickens P't 11.15 

I5T. Felix Holt, by George Eliot . .20 

152. Richelieu, by Lord Lytton 10 

153. Sunrise, by Wm. Black Part I.. .15 
Sunrise, by Wm. Black Parc II. . 15 

T54. Tour of the World in 80 Days 20 

) ’i5. Mystery of Orci val , Gaboriau ... 20 

156. T.ovel, The Widower, by W. M. 

Thackeray 10 

157. The Romantic Adventures of a 

Milkmaid, by Thos. Hardy M 

158. David Copperfield. Parti 20 

David Copperfield, Part II 20 

15£>. Charlotte Temple, 10 

160. Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Part I . . K! 

Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Part II .10 

161. Promise of Marriage, Gaboriau. .25 
IG2. Faith and Unfaith, The Duchess 15 

103. The Happy Man, Samuel Lover. 10 
164. Barry Lyndon, by Thackeray. . .20 
105. Eyre’s Acquittal, Helen Mathers 10 
166. 20.000 Leagues under the Sea, by 

Verne. .20 


BEAUr AND NERVE EOOD. 



Vitalized Phos-pliites, 

COMPOSED OF THE NERVE-GIVING PRINCIPLES OF 
THE OX-BRAIN AND WHEAT-GERM. 

It restores the energy lost by Nervousness or indigestion; relieves 
Lassitude and Neuralgia; refreshes the nerves tired by worry, excite- 
ment, or excessive brain fatigue; strengthens a failing memory, and 
gives renewed vigor in all diseases of Nervous Exhaustion or Debility. 
It is the only PREVENTIVE FOR CONSUMPTION. 

i It aids wonderfully in the niental and hodily growth of infants and 
children. Under its use the teeth come easier, the hernes gro'W better, the skin 
jumper mid smoother; the brain acquires nwi'e readily, and rests and deeps 
morre sweetly. An ill-fed brain learns no lessons, and is excusable ifpeemish. 
It gines a Twppie/r and better childhood. 

“It is witli the utmost confidence that I recommend this excellent pre- 
paration for the relief of indigestion and for general debility; nay, I do more 
than recommend, 1 really urge all invalids to put it to the test, for in sev- 
eral cases personally known to me signal benefits have been derived from 
its use, I have recently watched its effects on a young friend who has 
suffered from indigestion all her life. After taking the Vitalized Phos- 
pniTES for a fortnight she said to roe; ‘ I feel another person; it is a pleas- 
ure to live.’ Many hard-working men and women — especially those engaged 
in brain work — would be saved from the fatal resort to chloral and other 
destructive stimulants, if they would have recourse to a remedy so simple 
and so efiicacious. ” 

Emh^t Faithfull. 

PlITSICIANS HAVE PRE8CBIBKD OVER 600,000 PACKAGES BECAUSE THBT 

KNOW ITS Composition, that it is not a secret remedy and 
THAT the formula IS PRINTED ON E\TERY LABEL 

For Sale by DrusTSTl^tts or by INfall, ^x. 

F. CEOSBY CO., 664 and 666 Sixth Avenue, New York. 
^ , 








) " 






tf./. 


« I 


m r, 

' 1 ; 


•: i 


Uk 


a 


'i 1 


iff 


■ IM 


a 


\ 


' f 






itv 


f 


■ }y 


in 'j 




?f A*S 


\ I 


, i 


i ■ .f 


»w' » :r' 


if 




‘I i'l 


■ 1 ) 






7 < 




ri- ’ ^ > 7 .;, , 




* ! 


i • ' I f I 


I • < ‘ 


. • '> 


O'O 


V.- 


5 !!' 


tunjiM 




I VI 


•r 




1 


1 ^’ J ,r 

- »/ ^ 

■ 

■ \ • 
J'k ' =* i 














«»’ » 


? # 




* A 


HI 


< - 


I > 


t V 


n 




-..p 




; I. 


■f i 


r ♦ 


Ah I 


V 


If 


0 ^ 


Jl 


Jt 




I' 




\ 




^ » ♦. 




b %> 


W- 




I 0 


I Y j 


'/.•a 


T'r 




V>J 




fuq' 


*Vs* 


' 1 .^ 




M 








I 


• !A 


» l 4 . 


fi 






>/ 


• /j 


t • » 




■ 1 , 






‘A 


(I 


A a 


p ^ .< 


•V 


»** 


I 


( t 


.' * f ,1 


J/'f* 


If. 


\T' 


i s. 




/. 


“cPSr. 


* 


.-I' .■ * 




th 


k Mt 










'iy 


1 
















V 


-O X %^'‘ ' O ' '/ 

V X y ' f ^ 

'n *\' k sn.>; - '< ^’ ~ t<\\ \^ yi/ / j-y 

V \L ^ » 


0 * V '*' -X 

„*'*<■ ■''ty A ' 

" -V 

. ^ ^ 
-^'®'^^% J - ,0 0 ^. 

•^''. To ’” ^ o ’ , % u '' 

•f > ^ ^ C ' 

^ ^ 'r a ^ 

\ \ ^ 

^ ^ b 




^ 0 "* n N C 

x^X t “ ^ -f 

^ y ^ i > ^ 


^ ^-t^JJr^ V A -j y 

< k ' *k *> 



: 

iS > = x ° ° x . 

y 

o '" 0 

„ A , 0 ' 

0 . ^ 

0 ^ h 


<X 

V 


*9 

-1 ^ 


> 


'> u ^\ 


00 

»’\o^ 

^ "i * 0 O ^ \' ^ ^ ''' '^ 


<^* ^V • 

7- 7'yV/ii^\\\Y 

L * ^ / / AV 


* v 


S^ C 0 -9 ‘O 


o , 0 ^ <*. V \\ 

''o •* ,. 0 ^ ■■«>'' .‘ 


N 


a ' 


.0 o 


>- 


*’"'“ v ^ O "*' 


An 


o-i = r “ y . 

o ' ' - 

' ^ * ' // a "-' ^ 

A ^ . W^'o % 



0 N 0 


Nk </* 

^ ^ 





\ 


0 o 




^ 0 tj. V ^ \' > O / V s , 

a\ .* 0 ^ C . if it ^ ^ 


^oo' 



i'' 

> = °^.. ' -SgS 





^V cv 

t/> »< > 


r' <> 

AV v"' 



< 

*:> 


*A^.rA < 


.#■ 


O k 


y 


* > o 

, \\ .- 0 N C . 't' 

C). 




^•'.oo ■ o^.V; 


^ I 



8 1 ^'‘\\^ , 

\ i V ^ / 




.0 s 0 ^ 

v9^ ^ ° 


* 1 ^ 




» J ' » 

' ^ ' 

I * ’ 

' \ -• *, .• 
r". • 

• ‘J 7 ' 

1 . ► •■» » 

I 


* ► 

/ * 

A- < t * 

» « 

4 . at I 

; . .i » 

4 

f .*> ‘ 

y • ' I 
> • I « 

«. » . I 

* ' *1 
I < 

• 1 1 « 

>■ Va/ 

^ ;i. 

t V ** 


H \ I * \ f ; 

I \ ^ I , 

> • ' t r . 

r • * w , , 

* •“ •• a . » : 

V . • *. < 4. 

i'- A 

y.} . s , 

'• » i*y 

?: t • t/';; 

S ♦ * u . . a 

^ I * » a ^'i 

i . 

* I . a »' 

^ ' -.1 i, . ^ * 

* • • t t I s a J 

I r- 

• i 4 *•' ^ J* I 

ft. w • %-K 

t J ^ I 


« ^ *\ > 9 % i . m k* 

• » ? ^ i *. * « 


i ^ 

I - . « • X a • ^ «• 
^ * 4- • V V * f** S 

• b l’ 4 I % 

* *. 4 t a .» 4 • • J 

^ P '• 4 .* T . ‘ 

'i - . 'p-i'i; V - 

.J.% 1 'V '•; 7' 

>i,i *. 


• I • . I , 

* :.;*. i r. 4 

' i I a • 


a ( V 
I . 4 

. » # 


• -r 4.4.4.:*. 

■ 4 1*-..': r ..V 


* ? . r , 


*r * ft. f • , I 

- 

n * '• * .>• .r‘ 

l.X'. A 

i.’.f / 

M 4 ? < 1 I* ( 

I • \ • • •••.» 

' \ ^ 4 • 

‘ - 
V 4 > I ^ ' r 

^ ; ■ 4.. I a ' 

* •' ', I ^ • 4 * 

» r ►* .•. - ', 

t i T ■ •' ' # I V 

* f ^ 4 ~ 1. * I 

jb * 4*1 

1 : \ fc I i I / . i 

• srii 

* * 4 ^ ‘ r ' • 4 

^ 9 z f / a • I • 

• • - . j r I »■ 4 

[ 4^*15 


t 4 M * « a *, r • 

I •• • I • I » J 4 

? j 4 I ’ I r > 

, I ^a 1 * r a*. , 4' ; 

I / .* ft ^ • • » 

• ' * .4 I a 4 
» 

* ' . k » * • 

• » 4 - . « I • t • 

t ♦' * I > 

I •'!..* t . 

: * • a . ^ . •, . 

' * I I I • 1 

f < * • a • p 

» •'.?' • . * • 
• . I ■ •: 

^ j • '. . ' ^ ' 

• ’ \ r* , 

. •? . / . .f . : ^ i 

♦ - - * » ' > • 

lit)'l\yy‘ 

• j 4 # $ y k s a 

^ • « a • .' 

. .' . ' 

C •'? ‘ r. r,j 


i ' »* .* 

# ‘ a j 

. . k ‘ * • 

• I •. t a 


i I 


r*-!/ 

^ • « a 

a ^ ■ 

'' t • • 


I ♦ 5 • 

^ ^ I 

< • p*. 

ft I « 

t « f I 

• « 

» 5 . ^ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


DD□^ 30 ^S 4 aS 




I / 

I ; I 


C V ^ : ' > V > \f ..'.?* ' i- ,' V ' ‘ '! 

!* . .' T . *• * : . . . ■ , .* V * » • •. ! 


a » 4 • a • I * 

5 1 P . , 

i ‘ • 4 , 




p. •■ . # ' n t 

.• ‘ ' a a » 

' » * # • V . % 

« > * * ' ♦ a 








